Best posts made by mietze

Honestly I could listen to the hurdy gurdy and hammered dulcimer all day. Separately or together!

It all falls under the category of "pick what you feel is most conducive to the environment that you want," to me. So yes, it is rather headscratching to me to see the same people celebrating one and denouncing the other. They may not /like/ either one. But they're both methods/policies of narrowing down candidates. I would say both have potential to be very bad policies. Or they might accomplish the intent (which is usually not bad, unless the person is nuts). And both policies should be very overtly disclosed, IMO. If someone has no intentions of allowing a player new or unknown to them a chance at a major position, then probably that's something that they should also have the balls to say up front. Which is why I would probably choose to play at a place that said that up front, even if I was an unknown, vs on a wishy washy place, and would have more impatience for a place that operated like that, but for whatever reason wasn't honest about it.

The knee jerk nepotism haters seem to come from places where that policy was not clear (and I'm betting probably was denied or pussyfooted around), and thus had a pretty bad experience with it. Working towards earning something that you later discover would have never been possible for you anyway, because you didn't know the right people or hadn't been around for X amount of time) would be very infuriating, I'd think.

@SinCerely We are preparing to muddle through as best we can. Our college freshman will do fine. My twins are seniors in high school this year, one will do fine the other struggles with distance learning and I am very worried. The youngest is going into 1st grade, and can read/do math above his grade level but is completely uncivilized at this point, but if we even make it into a school building this year, which I have my doubts that will happen, he won't be the only one.

I lose sleep over the non-great distance learner and am prepared to seek a new job if necessary so that I can be available. He really wants to go to college now so maybe that will help, but.

There is little to no support or flexibility for families where all parents in the household must work during the morning hours. None. No flexible check ins. We will have mu college student until late September to help out with the 6 year old but after that...I'm not sure.

I think someone can not be a good fit for a role on a game, staff or power PC spot, without being "shitty". Some of the hardest conversations I've had to have revolved around someone who was not a bad person, but they were a horrific fit for the job once in place, and it compounded over time as people didn't want to deal with it. Because that person was not a bad person, they just could not carry what they needed to carry and the whole was starting to suffer as a result.

That conversation is hard enough to have with a nice acquaintance. I have very rarely met people who are willing to have it with friends, until the destruction reaches a huge level. What tends to happen is that when concerns are raised, they are ignored or the concern raiser is penalized (especially if they are the acquaintance alerting the staff to ab problem with the friend). And it's an understandable reaction from staff, IMO, because not only is the staff's judgement being challenged, it's a friend that's being talked about as well. Many people don't handle that real well, at first blush.

Again, that is why for me I prefer to have 3rd party gut checks when placing friends. I am lucky nearly all the places that I have staffed, to have at least one person who I know will tell me about pitfalls they see and will tell me if they think I have my head up my ass. That's been super valuable for when I have given someone a chance (friends or not) and it doesn't work out.

Just because someone is a good person/excellent rper, ect does not mean they'll be a good fit for a position. Even if they've done something similar elsewhere. You make the best choice you can, sometimes you have to walk it back. Since that is harder most of the time with friends, to me it's common sense to be a little more careful...and to always have an exit plan, friend or acquaintance.

Sad/happy. Snappy? But it really hit me that I just have two more weekends until Eldest leaves for college. Excited for him but I'm going to miss him a lot (and have already decided I will limit myself to me-initiated text once a week unless he specifically asks for more!)

@AmishRakeFight has captured my general opinions on the matter.

If you are in a public grid space, I think you are choosing to give up a degree of control over who comes in/out of it. This seems intuitive to me, but obviously isn't to everyone, given how many people freak the fuck out at someone "crashing" into their scenes in public places. (And before it starts, I'm not talking about the people who don't bother to wait or read for context of what, if anything, of note is happening in the area--that's annoying, and those people tend to be those who don't even bother to read for context even in scenes that are +Events or to which they have been invited, in my experience). There is a not-insignificant number of people who believe that they can declare any public area off limits to others once they start playing there. If that's the culture of the game, then it makes sense that staff involvement or viewing would be problematic, because there's the expectation that all areas of the game are essentially private space, first come, first served.

I am old fashioned and still ask all people in a scene if I can post a non-event log. Even for scheduled +events, I prefer to give people a link to the live log (for my own sanity I prefer to keep up with things in real time as much as possible) partially so that those who are coming late or need to wander away for a bit can still have the info at their fingertips and partially as a disclosure that the scene will be logged. I didn't care about my own scenes being posted for a long time--until I unfortunately experienced a bit of alt-stalking that was very unpleasant, and the running commentary on personal scenes with others made me feel very uncomfortable, especially since it was done in an accusatory way. So I have a bit of empathy there for folks that don't necessarily want all their RP all the time logged and /displayed/ publically.

I never autolog. But I am pretty much the only person I know that MUSHes that doesn't. To me there's a difference between private logging and public display. For some people the threshold is probably "anyone I don't know about/didn't consent to being involved is turning my private RP public" for others it may be anything goes but auto-log posting, with everything in between. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this, but I do think it's probably very important to be very clear about where that line is on /your/ game if you have one.

Yeah, I took a driving test for my very first license when I was 16 (MI), and have not had to take another one since, despite moving to 4 different states (VA, OK, MN, WA) in the following almost-quarter-century afterwards.

It's true; maybe some of the pitfalls of all-volunteer places could be approached in a different manner if you had paid staff (even if it was very low). But if everything was going to a specific third party organization, then you'd have all the usual issues of 'free' places with the additional complications of members feeling like they were 'owed' a different experience than they'd received elsewhere. Realistically, I'm not sure that they would get one. And I don't know, there is something about $$ being involved that makes people go a little nuttier than usual. I have taken many middle of the night sobbing phone calls about carnival prizes, "free" events, threats of lawsuits because someone did not win anything in the raffle they bought $15 in tickets for (that person later did try to file suit against me personally as chair of the board and the nonprofit itself). This was a mentally ill member of the community who was a known problem in the district. Maybe this is the RL equivalent of fretting over past experiences, but man. If I was taking money from anyone for any reason, even just to hold it to pass it on to a third party org, I would really want to make sure there was some legal separation of funds from my personal and the MUSH. There are some really sick and crazy people out there, and it is super stressful to have someone filing suit against you even though you KNOW it will get tossed out and you also have insurance and lawyer coverage. The harassing emails, the phone calls, and the bogus lawsuit kept me up at night for months, even though I /knew/ nothing would happen because I'd ensured all of our legal ducks were in a row, I knew the gambling laws, I had all the proper documentation, ect.

Just...I don't know. I don't think it's good to mix $$ and a hobby like this unless you know for sure what you're doing, and you're prepared to deal with the consequences. Nor should anyone P2P like this and not assume there's a strong possibility that their money may not go where they would like it to, and they may not be paying for a better experience.

Can people actually tell at a glance how old anyone is? I mean, obviously I can tell the difference between a child and elderly person, but 25-45 looks remarkably the same to me. Maybe I just know a lot of pact-with-the-devil well aging people or something. And usually people ping me for my mid-30s not a 40something. I think most of the grocery stores around here card anyone "35 and under", which I find hilarious. I'd have to card every adult that wasn't obviously elderly. Also find it weird that people think 30 is old. Most buddhist groups I've been to, as well as political organizations--I mean you are still in the Young/Young Adult category until you are 35.

Of course I also failed my meat judging class in college too. (Basically, where you look at a living steer or hog ass and say what you think the quality of meat will be). So maybe I'm just body-blind of distinguishing markers across multiple mammalian species or something, and most people CAN tell the difference between someone who is 34 and 42.

I also wonder if volunteer non staff support (player STs) would dry up on a p2p place. It might be an interesting experiment. I could see it going either way, depending on structure.

I think pretty gross and thoughtless statements come from regulars on this place on a not infrequent basis when they feel like they need to champion something. I understand why most people choose to not dignify it with a response, but yeah, when you're targeted by a such-statement it can be a punch. But getting involved in the emotional response even when it's you isn't worth it. The person making those statements doesn't give a shit, no amount of explaining is going to get them to see it, so you might as well move on.

And to be fair, maybe I missed something, but I only see Theno and maybe deadculture defending wanderer against Arkandel (and deadculture seemed to be more slamming Kanye than doing that anyway).

That being said (sorry for spelling/grammatical errors, I'm on my phone with a sick toddler laying on me, yay stomach flu), one doesn't have to be paternalistic about it either.

Simple, no-nonsense, and enforced. If you have the ooc down, then honestly I think a game runs better, regardless of possibility freedoms. Without it, you have the same old same old.

Oddly the easiest physical conditioning and energy and drive I experienced was in my 30s! Especially the latter half was the best shape I've ever been in my life. Started doing triathlons, took up running/cycling, considered going to school to be a personal trainer again. Had surprise baby at 40 though then got hit by illness now it's harder to get rid of the fat. However! I'm also 40+! So I may very well say fuck this shit, come out as fat a la Lindy West and just start gently doing the things I loved most (brick training for tri and supervised personal training--I need a spotter and mirror at all times pretty much because of hypermobile joints and inability to feel dangerous hyperextension doesn't mean I can't tear things up). And just not worry about not being able to lose 100 lbs in like 10 months pretty easily like I did in my 30s.

Best thing about my 40s--I really don't give a shit what the 20 something dudes think of some chubby old lady sharing their space, and I cheer on the 80 something little old ladies that whoop my ass on the track or in dance class, they are badass awesome.

Yeah, I think some kind of +finger based list of "People disqualified from RP with me" probably at least to me kind of says more about the person publicizing it. I have seen people do something close to that and TBH it always ends up I think after spending time with that person "wow, I can sure tell why you have problems with people!"

It's such a passive and kind of gross thing to foist your drama on everyone like that. Just avoid that person, if you will melt if you have to be in the same scene then politely excuse yourself so that you don't burden the ST or the other people.

And I 1000 percent agree that if someone is using the "I'd be all over you but poor me my other lady friend won't let me" excuse? Maaaybe the lady friend is a total bitch, but it's 99.9 percent the case that the poor guy caught "in the middle" is an even bigger asshole.

The raunchiest conversations I hear in the locker room at the Y are when the silver sneakers (55+) water aerobics class gets out. Though that should go in RL Things I Love really.

What I have found is the problem come less from IC and more from players who are very strong circle the wagons ooc types and who love to show off their +sheet powers. Usually those folks are very easy to spot with the ooc behavior in scenes/on channel, ect. They can be nice/fun to "their people" but everyone else (especially those that "threaten" their people/group) look out.

Just long experience has made it so that I tend to not hook into frenemy play with anyone who has a possessive partner/group or who has in their friends circle/group someone whose ooc behavior towards people they don't know or on public venues like chat makes me uncomfortable.

Limitless is pretty cute.

I was a pen and paper gamer nerd, not a computer one. But my university ended up creating the Blacksburg Electronic Village (everyone at the school plus most of the town was wired to the Internet, one of the first places in the US to do so--I could order a pizza off the internet and have it delivered to my dorm in 1994) so there was a lot of buzz/excitement about using computers for more than just word processing and floppy disk games. Being a stupid teenager, of course I got into a new weird thing called a chat program (PowWow, which for you youngsters is like chat roulette with no video of boobs or jacking off, sadly) and moos. Then one of my campus role playing guild friends told me about mushing. I played on an original theme place for the first time soon after that. Found SR Seattle in 1995. Along with some Star Wars games and a couple of WoT places soon after. Somehow I managed to graduate, and then in 96 I found a changeling game (TCtTT) which started me on the path to hating Ling but enjoying WoD.

Took a long break between 2002-2008 (with a few false starts) because 3 kids in 17 months means you're busy like whoa, when i dipped my toe in after that everything had shifted to nwod and there were wikis and all that and it was like a whole new world.

Smelling like pool + lake + sunscreen + shave ice + sleepy toddler after a long summer day; seeing exhausted teens that pretty much smell the same way all sprawled out reading. I hate when school starts again.

Well, that is the other thing. Even removing any sort of sexytimes, I don't think there is any way at all to view the vampire-ghoul relationship (thematic as written in the source RPG) as "healthy". I don't believe you could have said that about werewolf and kinfolk/wolf blooded until 2.0.

So my objection is not that people are doing dominant/submissive "incorrectly" (I've been around long enough that snobbiness in that regard makes me laugh--even in the RL community, uh sorry, there are, have been, and always will be differing definitions and practices) so much as unless there's a lot of communication what someone sees when they read/place an ad or seek out rp is most of the time going to be a little off from the other person's idea and some negotiation is probably ideal. Maybe I'm jaded but it seems like that's a high bar of investment to clear these days.