Posts made by mietze

I had a really scary day at work today and adrenaline crashes suck.

Crying happy tears, my favorite dog at the shelter (drop dead gorgeous shepherd/husky/whatever mix) finally got adopted. He is 14 but you would never know it, even his teeth are pristine and while he is super chill and old man in the sense he liked just hanging out and getting scratched/petted, he still liked to play and chase too. If I didn't have cats he would have been mine, fell in love with him even before I volunteered. I'm glad that I got to spend a lot of time with him the last time I volunteered (brushing the equivalent of another large dog of fur out of him) and getting cuddles, but I am also happy and hope I never see him again. His new people are the luckiest ever.

As I get older I find myself less interested in crunchy systems even those I am familiar with (like WoD). It is even less attractive to want to storyteller for because i do not want to have to deal with WoD/complex system rules lawyers. But I think with complex systems you kind of have to expect it, and be tolerant of that to a certain degree, since it is meant to encourage and attract people who want exceptions and special rules for everything.

There isn't anything at all wrong with that. Some of my favorite mushy people are rules lawyers to various degrees of obnoxiousness.

But I find myself more attracted to FS3 and ares and how arx has set up their systems (other than dominion shit and minigame stuff--i am really probably never going to understand that and that's just fine, I'm talking more about the super easy combat code and rolling without a crapload of modifiers).

If a system is relatively simple, doesn't have a ton of special exceptions or radically shifting rule sets in the same game, then I am down with trying something new).

I met someone at The Reach who used a reader, which I only found out about because we share a very stupid and dorky love of horrible joke names (like Colin Forsecs for example) and spend a lot of time cracking each other up with them, and she told me she loved hearing them on her reader.

@Trix I can confirm this is a super fun thing to do in game, and like almost all the other female players will high five you in the scene.

Disenfranchised grief (or any really) blows.

Easy access to the rules/system is awesome!! I think if you are excited about it you should go for it!!

I think my biggest issue with RP/involvement is that I almost always feel very isolated.

I think that many people who have spent time with me on games might be surprised by that, since I do have a very outgoing personality and I try to utilize that in my RP. But it's not always an easy thing to do, and I think a lot of times it's kind of dismissed as easy and not valued or seen as superficial.

I find I am rarely invited by others to participate in things without having to shoehorn my way in or taking on a coordinator/arranging role, possibly because they assume that if I wanted to be part of things I'd ask OR that I have a ton of other meaningful stuff going on. As a result I try to be as inclusive as possible with stuff I do, but to be honest that also often results in non-reciprocation or being downplayed as easy-for-me because of similar assumptions. That used to burn me out pretty quick. I'm better about deciding (after yes, being hurt for a little while) to just set it aside and not take it personally (because I don't think it is usually personal). But sometimes the anxiety does still get to me. I might be able to push through it on the quicker end of the spectrum, though.

I think in regards to this I'm trying more to be more accepting and realistic in my expectations. It's very difficult to try to stuff the impulse to freak out and want to pester someone to find out if they're mad at me/think I suck/if I upset them in some way, but I have found things are a lot calmer when I don't do that. I'll walk away from the screen a bit. I have gotten better about not hitting send impulsively on an OOC communication. I have a bunch of silly 2-5 minute guided meditations on my phone that I will make myself do so that I can't give in to that impulse and make things awkward. I remind myself that it's okay to feel sad/isolated sometimes, and probably like EVERYONE even the people I assume are having a blast 100 percent of the time probably are dealing with the same shit now and then too. I have been forcing myself TO do available game methods of staff involvement and to try to stuff the feeling of guilt/like I shouldn't be bothering them when they have so many more important things/PCs/Players to attend to. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I can still work on and submit those things anyway. It has helped some.

I'm not sure that feeling of "of course you're not good enough/your RP sucks/ everyone thinks your characters are trite and stupid" ever will go away, because it's really NEVER about the mush or the people on it, and it's something I know I'll always struggle with in RL too. I just have been trying to apply some of the tools I paid a lot of fucking money for (therapy) in RL to mushing as well. It works a fair amount of the time.

Today blew the top off of the record number of people screaming at me at work today.

Just for the record, for most bank issues screaming at anyone wont get them resolved faster. Especially screaming at the teller.

Now I just feel yucky, even though I got to see my favorite clients today too.

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.

@Coin Yeah, I think the maintenance would have to be constant, though I know that's hard to do too.

@Sparks I think what I am most curious about is what the balance is in a large enough group of players for independent RP/scenage that allows for a good mix (I dont think there's anything wrong with sandboxes that are essentially tabletop games, but that's a way different dynamic) while still allowing for a lot of staff deployed STing.

I know that probably that's best done with some kind of maintenance (opening up spots and being relatively quick to freeze PCs whose players have very obviously wandered off ). Which I know wont be popular either, but that's fine.

I would be really curious to hear from people who have played on games with that 15-20 number as far as if that felt satisfying enough in being able to in theory meet and play with new-to-you PCs when you wanted to while still maintaining that feeling of intimacy with your PC being individually being drawn in by staff seeing/knowing what you were doing and that being incorporated into STing. There are a lot of ways to accomplish the latter, but I'm wondering what the numbers point is for things being big enough that there's opportunity for player breathing room/ability to generate stuff on their own too, if that makes sense. That can happen with factions, but if the number of players is too small, there are issues of realistically having people feel like a faction is important to their play if theres just 2 people in it.

I keep thinking about a Fading Suns game and have a few ideas, esp now with Ares! I think what makes me the most hesitant is how to control numbers to make an active game with lots of GM/staff attention since I think at the very least that would need to be capped at a certain number of participants and I would probably want a 1 PC per player thing. I am def keeping my eye on the games lately who restrict slots to see how sustainable that is long term, and I am kind of curious as to how one arrives at that number.

Did I have much of the latter to begin with? Hmm. But thanks everyone!

Having been pretty badly emotionally beat down by the person in question's entourage during a very vulnerable time in my life, I empathize.

I will say though that it takes sometimes a certain type of personality to thrive in a pretty cutthroat and sell yourself biz, and that personality doesn't always (though by no means does it always exclude it) jive with community building collaborative storytelling.

Success or failure is not usually a measure of how nice a person you are or aren't. And I would also say that people can change a lot in 10-20 years! But it is also okay to never be curious to find out if/how they have, either.

I feel like Arx in Space would be Fading Sunsish.

IT'S 7/11!! FREE SLURPEE DAY!!!

Uhhhh does the google search page have birthday candles for everyone today or is just more evidence of sloppy-ass management of personal info?

I had a pizza with fresh grilled pineapple on it that was actually pretty good, at a very frou-frou hipster wood fired pizza place. Though maybe I shouldn't call it a pizza exactly and more of a flatbread since it didn't have a sauce base (there was stuff drizzled a little on top) or cheese on it? I hate canned pineapple so ham+pineapple pizza never appealed to me, but after having that I'll admit I might try it if it was a cheeseless hipster one. I'm not sure I'd like cheese with pineapple, even the fresh and grilled kind.

Spending the last two days being part of the team putting on a community care event with free medical/dental/clothing/shoes/on site DSHS workers to sign people up for services/vision care/meal plus groceries/haircuts/hygiene kits/community org representatives for our local area. We served 1000+ people in 5 hours of the event. I am fucking exhausted. And we didnt put a dent in the problem I know, but it was nice to see those people breathe just a little easier. And I can't believe I have an employer that gave me the day off to help and paid me my usual wage too.