Posts made by mietze

But I do not leave players hanging to approach me. As I have stated from the beginning, I ASK them to please communicate with me any no go areas they think I should know about, and also ask that should anything arise in scene to please let me know immediately.

I also open every scene I do with specific areas I will not venture into due to my own preferences, including respecting game rules.

If someone cannot handle that two way communication, not even proactively but when warmly invited and encouraged with my own disclosure first?

I am sorry, but I do think that is a massive, massive red flag. And I do not think it is ever a good idea to automate/code something with the express intent of allowing players to avoid communication on a collaborative game.

If someone is so avoidant they must be shielded by code from discussing anything that might come up pre scene much less unexpectedly scene in progress....

I will be honest. I don't think that type of person is safe for me to trust/include in scenes without me getting to know them better first. That is a level of trauma and loss of function that has been the first flag of major warning that I wish I had attended to in a player a few very memorable times in my mushing career and frankly in RL too.

I have never played on a game that did not ban child rape or molestation play, nor on any that did not have explicitly a no-rape without explicit content consent for both ways parties policy.

I don't have a problem with requiring people to fill out a form so much as I have very real doubts that it will solve the issue that's supposed to be solved, and is more likely to get hung up on letter of the law or loopholes or just...I don't know, people forgetting or just not thinking something will bug them.

Nothing is going to stop outright all incidences of triggers. There must be communication. I don't see a +system as facilitating communication for most people I have met in games. But that is what's needed, IMO.

I will go one step further.

If someone has ADD and cannot focus for long enough periods of time to run a plot scene and associated paperwork that Wizzbang MUSH states are requirements for their plot staff, then they should not be allowed to be plotstaff if they fall behind on what they are signing up to do.

If someone enters into a major depressive episode, as I did before my last exit from mushing, and they cannot log in or participate in a manner that is expected of the position they've taken or the group they are trying to be part of--then they should withdraw from that position and inform their group that through no fault of that groups other members, they need to pull a l and take a break.

Etc. If your illness or life circumstance makes it so that you are incapable or minimally capable of doing things in a timely manner, or in a respectful manner because you are so up and down with your emotions...

Then yes. You should not disrespect the rest of the community by forcing others to deal with your problems that they can't really help with. You should not clutter a game and make everyone's time there less pleasant with your outbursts; nor assume that people who are not acting out don't have some serious stuff they are dealing with as well.

I do not think we should not expect in an interactive collaborative hobby some semblance of emotional and mental hygine. And honestly? People while they may be initially disappointed DO understand or respect that, if you are upfront and do not drag them unwilling or unwarned into your business.

Or if they don't, then that is valuable info to have for the future.

It has nothing to do with unwelcome in the hobby.

However. If someone refuses to disclose to me large glaring or uncommon as triggers but not uncommon in theme no go areas, or does not possess the personal strength or will to communicate with me during a scene if something unexpected happens then yeah, I player don't feel especially safe inviting them into my scenes/play when there are certain boundaries that they feel they can trample on.

I treat everyone on a place like a real life human with feelings and things going on that I may or may not know about. I /expect/ that /they/ will behave in the same manner towards me. If they cannot or will not communicate in a way that gives evidence they also are thinking of me in that way, then I don't really want to give them my time, energy, or attention beyond the cordial inclusion in social scenes/public ooc that I try my darnedness to hold myself to.

If that makes me "entitled" so be it, but I have enough dealing with mentally ill/selfish or narcissistic/emotional vampires in my RL extended family and volunteering organizations at present that I could not tolerate it in my recreational activities. When I did, or attempted to, the outcome was not well received by the other person ever and certainly didn't improve my experience in the hobby.

If there was compulsory participation by all, it could be useful for the elements that the ST knows to plug in ahead of time. Hell I might be out of touch, but I have never run a scene where I had mapped out everything that could possibly happen. I like for pcs to come up with things I didn't anticipate. (Which is why people who needed straight formulaic plug in right answer get prearranged outcome plots and scenes did not sign up for/ask me to run theirs. It's not that I think that style is bad, it's not, many people enjoy it both running and participating but it's not how my brain functions.)

I could see this also being useful on a game where the only plot runners are staff. Both from a habit (of plugging in plot elements) and empowerment (being able to respond swiftly to ooc shenanigans/knowing more of what you're going to get as a player based on staff temperament and ability).

Not only that, as mentioned above, there are some people who may not be aware of their triggers. There are some people who have really weird ones. There are some people who aren't usually triggered by a subject but in certain circumstances or the stars and planets aligning just right that day, it might happen.

I think it's better to just have one to one communication with the people you're running for, and to make sure there's a line of communication during the scene. Not just for no-go areas but hell, just helping your folks hook in if they are ooc stumbling a bit. What is the point of running something for people if you don't bother to find out what's fun for them while it's going on?

As Theno says, code isn't going to solve what ultimately boils down to a social problem.

Jesus. If there was some expectation as a prp runner that I input every thing that I thought could possibly come up into some code every single time (for others who probably didn't bother to list all their +nopes in the same code or who don't know them), shit if I would run things for people I don't know.

And if you have a shitty ST that takes out their aggro on someone or who behaves like poor me princess, then you /leave/.

I'm sorry, but the people who sit around and take abusive behavior because "I don't want anyone to be mad at me," are not victims, they are contributors.

You can walk from a scene, and you can boot disruptive players from a player run scene. Perhaps if people were less willing to tolerate crappy behavior less would occur. Or people who "don't know any better" could eventually learn as their ass got dumped enough times.

If staff storytellers are doing rude and railroading and ooc manipulative things, you got much worse problems that a content warning won't solve.

Hmmm, probably should also mention that aside from strictly social or info dump gatherings (court, etc), I am one of those awful horrible people that puts a size limit to my plot scenes and sticks to it. If I'm running an adventure I'm giving up my pc/personal play for the evening, but I'm not giving up my fun. So I stay within my personal limits as to how many people I can safely handle and be super attentive to. It makes keeping track/behind the scenes negotiating a lot easier and more respectful of everyone's time. I do not run things I don't enjoy/can't be attentive to my player's enjoyment of, if that makes sense.

@Arkandel Yeah, I paged or mailed every one ahead of time and also checked in for boundaries before the scene kicked off with everyone assembled. And also requested that if there was an element they couldn't handle for any reason to page me immediately to see if it could be resolved for them to continue or to allow me to work with them for quick no harm no foul exit.

If someone got nasty ooc or harassed other people in the name of their upset, I booted them and apologized to the others.

Apu, it is on the player to exit ooc with minimal fuss then. They should neither derail the scene that others are enjoying not target the people in it for abuse. They cannot expect everything to be dropped to attend to them.

It did work a lot better than me trying to outline every possible thing and then warn in advance. Plus, knowing boundaries also helped me guide things when other players would insert ideas into play. Which is something awesome, that should be encouraged, that isn't going to get labeled in a summary warning.

I also think shock gore/violence for its own sake is boring as hell. I feel that I very much operated on a middle ground of respect. I prefer slow burn horror/tough choices/etc rather than gratuitous "ooh this ought to be edgy" stuff because the latter is boring. (Like the people who think the only way to make your character "dark" is to have a Rapey McRaperson Does White Slavery! background that some poor staffer has to read through).

Back when I was an active scene runner/prp person for vampire and werewolf and law, I just asked for the people signed up (or who'd requested I run a story for them) to privately disclose any "no go" areas/themes for them. Then I could privately advise them to either not participate or if possible alter some details that I knew about in advance.

To be honest, I think a lot of players like to be surprised/to feel unscripted/have to think on their feet. Unlike a published prewritten article, a plot is something that can change/move due to the dynamics of the people in it (in theory anyway). If you have to give a rundown summary that removes some of that element. Or it desensitized people to content warnings over time. I know some problematic people who will indeed file complaints/scream at people over certain content that regularly signed up for scenes in which warnings of a general but accurate sort were given. They had lots of friends going and didn't want to not sign up, and then targeted the runner for their abuse. Now the same thing could be said of privately asking, but I had a lot more success with it, both in being able to tailor the scene without anyone's knowledge into something enjoyable for everyone, including me--but also in feeling more entitled to then boot/remove a player being a dick afterwards and protect other players vs. needing to focus all my attention on a player freaking out after they'd been given a opportunity to proactively disclose their Do Not Go areas.

Yes, that is cold to some extent. But a) I no longer tolerated people using MUSHing as their therapy/other players as their whipping boys/girls due to other issues and b) got sick of the squeaky wheel/needy player in the scene in progress slowing things down/wasting the time of other players that were GGG (Good, Giving, and Game). I'm a nice, considerate person in RL and most of the time in game. But when it comes to running a scene or plot, I prefer to protect the experience of the quiet people too, and respect everyone's time by avoiding derailing ooc behavior.

I think as long as the runner has given each person ample opportunity to disclose their NOPE areas, then the responsibility lies on the triggered person to quickly and with minimal ooc disruption exit the scene. And I agree with Coin, that it also is very annoying when someone decides to roll into a sphere that is obviously not going to be something they can thematically handle, and then proceeds to bitch/try to change/vomit their discontent all over people who are playing canon theme.

Also: thank fucking God for a setting where it makes total sense to have 5 strip clubs, high end restaurants, churches, multiple entertainment venues within spitting distance almost all the time, where there are famous people and street people running around. And people from all over the world in and out instead of wondering why every other person you run into is an accented exotic busty catlike grace ninja person in this little teeny town.

A side thought. Why the fuck do some people demand that game makers must create/build/eternally run things in order to not be "a flake". While you do have some extremely very few people who are truly capable of doing all three well (newsflash: most people who think they do don't), most games would be better served by allowing different people to have their strengths instead of demanding everything from the person "in charge."

I think the weird expectation that whoever opens a game must be an excellent thememonger, meta plot ideas and management person, ooc damage control, grid and systems and adaptation manager, etc has done more to damage the hobby (and encourage control freaks who have no business running a game that people other than sycophants wander in to play on) than someone who is particularly strong in one area opening a game, when it could be encouraged/not taken as flaking or failure if they then stepped back and handed off other operations to people equally as talented in those areas.

@Ganymede

You know what the sad thing is? Honestly having this process of experimentations and inevitable failures within the likely scope of the game could be so so so much fun to play. I once played an engineer on Fading Suns who pretty much just took apart and tried to figure out odd artifacts and tech. Pretty much I was given carte Blanche (within reason) to have in a scene some gadget she was tinkering with do amazing things as long as a) they were not useful, and b) the item was totally destroyed by the end of the scene. For anything that could be useful for her or used against any other PC I had to go through a pretty laborious real time waiting and working on things (though that was super fun too honestly).

It was pretty fun to play a crazy inventor/reverse engineer! Even though it didn't really win her social points with the other pcs icky.

So really why someone would bitch about having to go through extended trials and errors is hard for me to wrap my mind around, it would give you more motivation and things to talk about icly than a lot of people have outside sob stories!

What's wrong with staff saying "Clearly you've put thought into this and we respect that but it's not a direction the game is going to go, no matter what you roll, by our choice?"

There's no need to do weird contortions to justify it, just say "We don't want that within the scope of the game."

Will some players get huffy or feel constrained? Yes. Would they have probably found something else to bitch about? Yes. Is it unreasonable for players to have the expectation that they have truly free reign without boundaries to change anything at all in the game environment whenever they wish to start rolling for it or because they want to? Yes. Has our community coddled this a bit by letting people down easy, throwing down false mechanical barriers, and deflecting the question so as not to cause a fit? Yes.

As to course corrections player to player--unless you have a cordial ooc relationship with that player or they ask you point blank...don't. Do not offer unsolicited advice. It will likely be received in the same manner that you'd feel where they to tell YOU how to play (their way) on the same game. Limit your play with them if you truly can't stand it.

If staff doesn't notice flagrant violations of theme in their presence or promotes that player despite their obvious lack of interest in the theme ooc and sloppy attention to what other people are doing--then honestly the problem is not the player. It's the staff. Don't blame a player for destroying theme immersion that the staff is unwilling or unable to deal with.

@Pandora I may have to do just that on a semi regular basis. I had no idea how much stress and burnout I was carrying until this week! And I found a wonderful drop in daycare that the 3 year old loves!

For the first time in 18 years I have had two blocks of time where I am the only human in my house. I have been able to get the most essential part of decluttering/purging of unused belongings in huge chunks rather than small progress per month almost done.

I am a (people loving and social) introvert homebody with 4 kids and a work at home spouse (who's been out of town on biz all week). It is so wonderful to finally have my truly-alone-and-at-home energy recharging for the first time in sooooo very long!!