Posts made by mietze

I think too much of the time labels aren't really specific. Antagonist/not-nice covers a huge swath of things.

I find verbally aggressive asshole PCs to be entertaining, if they players are able to deal with being treated like an asshole/responses in kind ICly. (Which is, IME,definitely NOT a given. Even with a warning label about how they're such an asshole!). Physically aggressive PCs are fine with me to, but I'm a little careful with that now, because I dislike white knights who use every situation to jump in and "defend" someone before they have a chance to do so themselves or even get to play with the aggressor (one way that protagonist pc players in particular can become very ME ME ME ME scene dominators, actually!). Sexually aggressive PCs I'm very leery of. Not because I'm opposed to that (I'm neutral) but people who engage in rape drama on either end, or who need an audience for it, IME have been very problematic players in general. Not to say that I think everyone is, it just seems to be a strong majority, so I prefer to smile and nod around that. Insane/Extremely impulsive PCs can be okay and fun, as long as they don't OOCly freak the fuck out when ICly my PC declines to include them in sensitive/exacting stuff. (Also, unfortunately, not a given. Sometimes chaos is cool, but wanting sometimes there not to be chaos or escalation during an important mission is also a reasonable thing too, I think.) Budding roses who are really from the bottom barrel of onions are also kind of meh to me. (The people who desperately want you to peel back the layers of their PC because they're so complex and rewarding and won't it be enriching--but instead it's all about them and it's a little boring, and you'd better not ask for reciprocation, and instead of a complicated and wonderful story it's just kind of soggy/moldy and isn't good for much but to toss in the compost).

@faraday I think the impact of a scene dominating player (antagonist or protagonist) can have a huge impact on a small game, or if they're in a high position. I have seen OOC mememememememe people (of both stripes) kill games (especially small games) when they also have the time to sign up/be everywhere or in positions where one must loop them into everything. Thank god that is rare. But it can and does happen. I do think it's much more noticeable and snowballs really quickly on low pop games, because then people have to escalate to carve some space for themselves too, and I have never seen that not bleed into IC/OOC crossover snark.

ETA: Anyway, this is probably its own spinoff thread. I don't play on this game, though I was considering it once I am feeling better healthwise due to a good friend who's having a lot of fun there (though if I did I would be going for a grounder, for many reasons). Some of the experiences of others does make me a little leery though (I had not heard about this prior to this thread, but I've learned to not really dismiss things like that out of hand either), because I'm of the "Variety is the spice of life" sort, and I don't want to have to deal with personal nastiness directed at my PC in every scene right from the start (nor am I particularly interested in looooooooooove loooove slobber slobber all the time either to be honest with you). I love me some frenemies and friction, but I prefer it to have some purpose or buildup (either bg or otherwise) first, so that it's a scaffolding/development, not impersonal because I happen to be in the same room sort of thing.

@Kestrel
tl;dr: Everyone needs to learn to just be more accepting and find their niche because no style is better than the other, it's all just preferences. Live and let live.

I think you may be a little heavy on the 'dr' side of what's been said. One of the biggest problems is that people (especially antagonist PCs, and I have been guilty of this myself at times) want to push people into boxes of 'all or nothing'. IF you don't enjoy my antagonist play at the moment, it must be because you are just one of those warm and fuzzy pretty princess TSers. Warning labels are great, but most good people are not going to want to bar anyone from play; what are they supposed to do when you join in? Tell you to get lost? Get run out of the scene themselves?

Or is it okay, maybe, to ask EVERYBODY (antagonist or not) to mind their OOC manners, to not scene dominate all the time (sometimes it's helpful to go and read logs if it's a heavily logged site). Maybe it's okay to not assume that if someone ducks out or needs to take a break from someone attacking them ICly, it may be NOT because they're a pussy who only wants to go on pony rides but because they've had someone doing that in every scene they've been in and it's stressing them out and not allowing them to actually develop their PC as much or primarily only be in defensive RP. (Which is awesome, but not if that is ALL they get to do). Just like it is okay to NOT assume that people whose PCs are snarly and snappish and mean or whatever hate your play or even your PC. That deciding to white knight someone's ass and ostracize a "mean" PC OOC/IC crossover is a pretty shitty thing to do that's deep sixing a lot of awesome RP for everyone. Or that winning/losing one time doesn't mean that's all that you're good for.

It is possible to be a difficult, hard to handle, antagonist PC /without/ needing to piss all over everyone OOCly and make every scene you're ever in no matter what it is constantly revolve around you. (For that matter, it is possible to do that as a purposeful "white knight" done well PC also, you don't need to curbstomb everyone and turn it into mememememe there either). It is not cool to assume that IC antagonists are horrible people who are only there to troll people/shit all over everyone. It's also not cool to stick one's nose in the air and say that if anyone gets stressed out/doesn't want to have antagonistic play all the time, it's because they're just a perfect princess who wants everyone to love them. While there are people who fit either extreme to a tee (unfortunately) the vast majority of people do not.

Warning labels, thematic descriptions, whatever, it has nothing to do with being an OOC jackass. You can have a very antagonistic theme with players who are not jackasses. And a 'cooperative' theme dominated by jackass players. I've seen warning labels self-applied to players who were major hosebeasts using it as a excuse to be absolutely horrible and people who were very concerned with having /and providing/ fun to other players and respectful of limits (as in, I will not think you're a pussy if you choose to limit your time with me as a result, I understand my PC isn't everyone's cup of tea, not I will change my PC to suit you.). It's really the behavior, not the warnings, that makes or breaks it. And sometimes people get a little too lazy with self-awareness. It's easy to do. I will bet you that anyone who has been a MU*er for long has created problems for themselves a time or two with self-unawareness, or they're lying.

I don't doubt your motivations, Kestrel, and I bet you are a really fun antagonist to play with. What I would caution though--and maybe it's just that you've not yet run into it yet but you likely will--is that absolutely antagonist pcs can very much be the flip side of the "pretty princesses" on the selfishness coin, and often accuse those who don't appreciate the ooc domination as well as "not being able to handle their PC being perfect in my pc's eyes." Or people that start avoiding them and the constant center of attention need as "well they just don't like anything that's not hearts and unicorns play."

Its just something to keep in mind if you start to get a lot of feedback from /varied sources/ (that's important!) that it may be overly dominating things. And if someone expresses some dissatisfaction with that type of play in general to maybe keep that in mind (they are getting too much of that particular kind of play every time they enter a scene) as something that most people get irritated at no matter what it is, and not and indication that they don't like that kind of play at /all/ or can't handle it.

It sounds like you're doing the good things like bothering to check (either overtly or not) if your partners are enjoying themselves. It's the people that do not that make folks leery. Or when someone cannot express that they're finding constant unprovoked antagonism tiresome/stressful/unfun and they're told that it must be just because they don't like anything that doesn't make them perfect. That's not true for a lot of people (I know it is for some!); sometimes they mean what they say--that they're just not finding constant personal antagonism that fun when it totally dominates everything they try to participate in and is directed at them.

I think there is "my PC is a dick/doesn't need everything tea and roses" and then there is "I must relentlessly turn every scene/event into me ME me me ME oh my angst oh look dark oh so outsider ME ME me me oh don't you want to help/understand/give ME something else that I can use elsewhere to make sure everything always revolves around me IC/OOC." I think sometimes people don't realize when they've crossed that line. Or that people who are willing to cede the spotlight often have people who enjoy hogging it just this one time--all of the time, so all their rp tends to be supporting others with little given in return. Dunno if that's what's happening here but it's common enough everywhere I've played now that even when I play a hardass/not easy to get on with person I try to at least on a regular basis make sure I'm giving those others a chance to spotlight and I am not turning every scene into mememelookatme. It's easy to cross that line.

Same thing with wangst "poor me/Ive lost so much/never good enough" stuff. It is fine if played well and not turned into ooc a reason to make every scene all about that.

I feel you, Wretched. One of the irritating and just morale grating experiences I had on TR as a Ling admin was denying MGMT his fucking 9 foot long tail and a whole bunch of other shit mien...at Wyrd 2. So much public boohooing, lying, so much other people saying "OMG YOU BITCH Y U DENY PLAYERS SOMETHING". Verbal abuse on the job, in pages. Relentless. But you know, guy was "having a bad day, he's not usually that bad."

I'd definitely be interested in giving it a whirl. Please keep us posted! I am a bit leery of too many spheres on a place that's already got some special applications (like a historicalish theme) and a mix of of things that don't have conversions to CoD yet. But this does seem like a really fun place to do mortal, which I have really been missing.

The fact that I can head off a tantrum from the toddler by whispering "burp" or "fart" into his ear and get giggles instead.

I agree that in super large especially purposeful scenes, they do tend to be focused on one or two people at a time (for court scene, Prince and each speaker in turn, for example).

However there are a lot of tone deaf people who use wordiness or escalation to make /every/ scene all about them, and don't seem capable of paying attention or helping others share in it at all. It's something that's easy to avoid on large games but it's really frustrating and demotivating of small ones. Or, frankly, even in large games where you are then (as i mentioned before) turned into a captive audience, because you need to be there for plot purposes or information sharing purposes, and some jackass has to make sure that everyone in the room knows how much of a special asshat they are). There does always seem to be at least one in every group.

I prefer less dialog and more feel/detail as well. That's still something you can respond to and is often, when some well, very very responsive to what others are doing in the scene. Some pcs are more talkative than others though. If they are, I have found that if I put a lot into non verbal, I will get that back too (normally along with the dialog, which is fine). :). Or sometimes it just depends on the night.

I think in a communal game it's really important to observe the environment. If you're in a small group that loves the 5 paragraph posing each time and you click enough that you are together enjoying it, great. I have a few people that I love to spam cannon with.

But if you are in a scene with 8 people with a time frame or one in which people need to be in order to impart information or what not, and everyone else is keeping it to 1-2 paragraphs to keep things moving, when you take advantage of a captive audience by posing 5 paragraphs of nothing but meta and environment and won't move your information forward or respond to anyone or give anyone anything to respond to you about...it makes you look like an ass, not a superior writer.

I don't have a strict time between poses preference except in a managed scene (STed or something like court). I very much appreciate @Ganymede 's suggestion long ago to preload poses and alter as necessary. It's really helped me in light of some health issues that make me a little slower in typing/processing things. Even so I tend to be in the 10-15 minute range (so my difficulties are far more noticeable 1 on 1 than in 3 pr scenes), but I tend to not get too many complaints because I do try to make it up in quality if I can. The flip side is that unlike my younger mushing days I find I greatly enjoy work-slow scenes, rather than getting impatient, so I enjoy a wider variety of people than I once did. (As long as they're quality!) it has its rewards.

The later it gets the bigger it gets.

I actually do not have a strict size or stamina preference, other than I lean towards longer than a sentence. I prefer shorter poses when the scene is large. Also I prefer there to be actual content that can be responded to. I'd rather deal with single word :smiles in rapid fire and misspelled/unpunctuated than people who pose for 4 paragraphs about how the fucking wind blows their hair in a dramatic fashion at just the right time or a shitload of stuff that cannot be responded to at all but is meant to beat everyone over the head with the pc's internal monologue. God. It makes me want to chew my own leg off to escape the fucking trap. I wish those folks would just go write a novel, since they aren't really actually interested in anyone else. Oh, except for those folks also tend to suck, which is why they need their captive audience I guess.

@coin Waiting for you to instagram every meal you've ever had.

@Coin Are you pregnant, girl, or just really fat?

I have never played a mud, but I have seen all these variants, from the "everyone is timestopped if anyone in the area isn't online and will remain so until things can be coordinated" (not very respectful of players, IMO) to "if I don't see you/talk to you I can make up whatever shit I want to ooc about what your PC was doing and I can and will present it as ooc fact, not just my PC lying". (The only time I ever filed a complaint on TR and one of only 2 times ever I've filed one period). I have also been ICly penalized for "not being around at these important scenes for the group"....because I was running them for the group. :D. And waiting for all the friendly powerful people to go to bed oocly and log off was often the time the telenuke would be given, back in the 90s/early 00s.

On MUSH/Xes, not MUDs. I like @Ganymede 's distinctions best. It makes a lot more sense as a cultural sense. I bet there is a spectrum of MUDs to Mushes that fit both.

I don't know why it's so hard for people to just say "oh darn, this person wasn't able to be here oocly, well, let's just assume they were prevented from acting by something unforeseen until we have a chance to talk." Bob not there because he had to wander off to take a dump in the woods/deal with another emergency patient npc/didn't make it back from the kegger run in time" is way different from "you abandoned your post IC/you decided to abandon these pcs ICly."

One is not stopping the action (I've played on places where you'd be time stopped for things like that) but also allowing for an out that doesn't give the player no input into how they would have acted.

It's a good compromise that doesn't get anyone stuck waiting. It's also oocly collegial.

The other in essence means that it's not you that controls your PC at all, unless you're on 24/7 others can make up the IC narrative and your actions as soon as you're logged off. (Maybe that would also encourage people to always plan their pvp actions by checking who list and using that as a tool...oh no wait. )

@Ganymede said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Unfortunately for me, having a large vocabulary was all I could offer.

I....kinda like your large vocabulary.

Yep. I'm all for not having to molest a thesaurus to come up with ways to indirectly communicate things. If your character is visibly upset/obviously contemptuous, ect then I think it's awesome to pose that directly. To me, that's not really meta. (though as you can see folks have variant interpretations!) It gives me the choice to decide if my character notices/how they react. It does not forcefeed me explanations. Maybe ICly my PC has an idea and can ask or goad further. Maybe it's a total WTF so it gives an opportunity to wonder/seek out more, ect. But that's an /invitation/. If there's no invitation there, only commentary or background, then I tend to feel pretty steamrollered.

I also think it's neat to differentiate even in scene. I might have a public pose for my PCs that are harder to read. If someone is in the room that knows them well, then I might @pemit something telling (especially in large group scenes). That way I can acknowledge multiple levels of intimacy (not the sexual kind) or incorporate things I know the other player likes that's personal to their PC without rubbing it in everyone's face or cluttering up a ginormous scene with stuff that's really only targeted towards one or two people.

That just feels oocly friendlier to me. I do try to pay attention to every other PC in the scene, so that I can incorporate stuff into smaller scenes with them later if we have a chance to play again. It's such a treasure when that's returned, or done back!

What I expect in a scene are things I can react to. Unless you are going to open up to my PC about your past or give an in for me to inquire (looks like/bags under the eyes/visibly upset) then it feels like you just want spectators rather than give and take. It's not a cardinal sin or anything. And there are appropriate small scenes for that (one on ones or very small groups where everyone's familiar). But it can definitely be intrusive outside of that, at least for me. I love taking an interest in other pcs. But i enjoy that with interaction not spectating. That's more a personal peeve of mine though.