Posts made by mietze

Just because someone is a wannabe rural redneck/tough gal/has researched having a cow and chickens for their apocalypse farm (but doesn't even have the emotional wherewithal to stay home for two weeks and shelter in place without throwing tantrums at people) doesn't mean they're familiar with livestock dewormer.

Farmers aren't taking it. People following their preacher/talkie host/chiropractor/you tube doctor are (buy it through my affiliated link, y'all!!) And most of them had never even heard of ivermectin before this im pretty sure.

What is interesting to me is seeing how people who clearly know that the advice to take it is crank but who also feel spiritually and socially bound to nod along deal with the cognitive dissonance. But also scary because that makes people lash out at "othered" people even more.

I wonder how much the top tier people at doterra and young living are making over the last little while. I see lots of people working hard to sell their cure/prevention which is doubly sad since none of the people now will make money off of it themselves as they annoy and maybe even facilitate killing off some of their neighbors and friends "working their business." Wonder if amway was a take too or shaklee/all the other "nutrition" mlms got a little boost for their top tiers also.

The MLMs tend to prey on these communities too.

@arkandel I don't think there's one mastermind, but there's a lot of people making $$$ from anti-vax, don't trust the government/science, here try this crazy ass shit instead of real medicine, and religious fervor. I think maybe the mundane people are seeing this out in full force because of the pandemic, but there's been grooming towards this for a very very very long time now. I feel sad that the people it is affecting the most are the least equipped to be able to handle it.

@greenflashlight unless someone has said that they're only wishing to be attractive to men/women/whatever, I'm not sure why anyone should assume that they're purposefully trying to exclude people. Or maybe I'm just confused. I am attracted to women but I can't think of anything that's ever drawn me to a woman that would not be something that a lot of men would also find attractive.

But I do get feeling uncomfortable due to /unexpected/ attraction to someone that you think won't return it. But as derp said I think that's also a common experience across a lot of different kinds of folks.

When you are once more so content in general that you can be oocly uncomfortable about a scene (not creepy-weird, that would still be a nope out) but still not want to run far far far far far away. Not good to feel weirded out but so good to be able to just muddle through it and extricate from the scene itself without wanting to immediately log out and just not come back for a few days. I'm going to say that means my stress level both RL and in regards to game is probably the best it's been since before the pandemic. And now I'm getting teary eyed about that, in a good way. Like maybe I'll get to be normal again!

Helps to define your terms a bit.

What do you mean by balance?

What do you want/what are you comfortable with as a gamerunner?

How much conflict resolution do you want to deal with intra- and inter-sphere?

I'm not putting together a WoD game but I am slowly putting together one that has multiple layers of shared experience (having to really think about people in the same scene experiencing the world around then in vastly different ways, and how you tie that together both in scene running and code. Totally separate scene/cut off from each other? Trying to do a mixed company scene? It can get complicated fast). It also has a lot of factions and themes that could very quickly turn into pvp.

My solution is to remove some archetypes/groups from play thar rely heavily on cracking down on the types of pcs that I want to center stories on (limiting spheres in wod terms). I also decided on number of pc caps, alt limits, and focusing on highly personalized storytelling (narrowing the scope and focus a lot more than is feasible for an open invite mush imo). So the balancing of storytelling and attention is very much on an individual level.

Trying to incorporate a different experience of reality between pcs in the same scene/combat has been the sticking point and while I think we have a good idea of how to solve it until we have a chance to test in active rp vs just regular testing it won't really be known.

But anyway. The decisions I'm making revolve around what I have time for, what I have mental energy for as a storyteller/game runner, and the ooc environment i want to encourage. I anticipate the scope and other things may broaden over time and interest of the players s but maybe not if the group is having fun where it is at. I do not have the capacity for high need outliers though, I know that for sure.

Everyone is different though. I feel that focusing on what I thought was realistic for me to have fun and enjoy things was a better basis for deliberate and honest game decisions than a more vague or aspirational approach; some people will be the opposite.

Right there with you with my cousin hawking essential oil blends for fighting the covid outbreak that put most of her family in the icu at some point, and shitting on the medical staff that was caring for them as not being attentive enough.

@derp I've seen it around here at the kind of diner-type places. Though my favorite thing kinda like that isn't a waffle per se but takayi stuffed with ice cream instead of red bean paste. You CAN buy those in a lot of asian supermarkets but the fresh ones are amazing (and we have several food trucks in my area that do all kinds of taiyaki from the traditional, to more savory sandwich type of things to the ice cream ones.

Crop tops are a thing. I love that I see lots of young folks of diverse sizes and shapes looking cute and rocking them.

But when they creep also into clothing targeted to my demographic, like not AARP eligible but heavy on the middle aged chubby lady--i mean nobody wants to see that. I need to reach over my head a lot (I'm also short), from getting shit off shelves or dancing around with my preschool class. And now EVEN IF you find shirts that are fine in front and back, they go up on the sides. I can't wear standard tees due to school dress code except on Fridays.

You know what is worse than inadvertent side boob? Unwanted side muffin top. (Though I understand from friends either sounds better than unexpected side balls when it comes to possessor comfort) And its a bad idea for a uterus posesser of my age to have to wear layers, if you don't want us to look like a sweaty mess.

The lead teacher laughed at me yesterday until I pointed out her shirt was doing the same thing so at least misery has company.

@greenflashlight it was a typo. Sorry. Has been corrected now.

@derp @drama. I was kind of trying to take the day off but since I was around I didn't want gany to have to deal with it later.

And it was spotted by me because someone else pointed it out. It is super super helpful when folks notice to report or pm us, we both do the best we can but we both have busy jobs and families so.

Banned again.

@arkandel no, as long as the text is there as the prime focus that would still ping as mu to me. If the interactions between characters and in story requires me to view pictures then that's where it falls off for me.

Its like the difference between a book and a movie, both are stories but one relies primary on visual, the other on text. Even though books can incorporate pictures, and movies can utilize text in their storytelling. There's even hybrids, like graphic novels, or what I've seen from many rpg video games as an observer (hubby and friends), where you do get to choose some of the direction of the text and that may be how the story is communicated if the studio didn't have a big voice actor budget, but the primary immersion is in the graphics.

Mushing for as long as I can remember has incorporated visuals sometimes, long before wiki people would make websites for characters or groups. So its not the fact that there are viewable images as the focus of the interaction.

I like Faraday's list the best.

But if I really think about it when I think MU for me anyway the root is text based. Not video or picture or visual in the actually seeing it vs mind's eye thing.

I guess when I read a broader conversation about the need/must for games to be compatible with both client and web based users (Faraday wasn't the first to bring that up, but did point out the drain in doing so, which even as someone who doesn't understand how that works i can see that, which is why I think if you don't want to do that then it should be okay to not), I don't think anyone needs to do that all if they want to go for something different. It is a risk right now to not, but if its something important that they want to try, then at some point the bullet needs to be bitten because worrying about bringing everyone or saying it can't be done because some people are holdouts just seems like a waste.

But anyway, communication seems to be difficult for me this evening, sorry for upsetting people, bowing out.

Some people will always notice/refuse. I think that's fine, but it would also be fine if someone only wanted to do web based to go ahead and move that direction. I think the slow movement away from being tethered to a client is already well in hand for a significant chunk of people.

@tinuviel If the people you want to appeal to are going to cling to the old preferences, then I'm not sure if you want something totally different it is a good use of your time and energy to try and pry it away from them and let their refusal stop you from trying something new with other people (even though it will ve smaller) who are less reactive and might even be receptive given the right environment.

Also do not interpret that as me saying you should do it. I mean if you Faraday specifically did, I would be inclined to try it just on general principle even if it made me uncomfortable at first.

But I don't see the point in complaining or fretting about people that won't give an old preference up. If you (general) want to move on to a newthing then I mean maybe the people who truly just will never aren't who should be focused on.

@faraday if people are serious about leaving something behind, yeah seriously at some point there will need to be games that go client free. If that's important to the person running them.

Otherwise, I think wasting energy wondering why other people won't give up a thing is a waste.

I actually think ares will be a huge stepping stone to getting some people interested in a no-client game. I know many people who never would ever have utilized browser stuff before and would have scoffed until they tried ares and now while it may or may not be their preference to have no client option, they would be fine doing that on something like ares because they've had a chance to use it and see that it is actually ok and not catastrophic to their experience.

I think probably at some point someone will make a web only thing. Had you asked me 15 years ago if I'd like something like ares I would have said no way. Said the same thing later on for real for any kind of trying to mush on mobile. But now I prefer ares specifically for the web interface that also allows me to comfortably mobile game.

Yes, if you don't want to support using a mushing client if you want to go full web, you may have some people less interested but has that actually been a problem for you or is this theory or imagination?

I guess I do not see the need to control what every individual wishes to do in how they connect to a game. If they are interested enough in your web browser only project then they'll try. If they aren't ready to do anything but a mu client then they're not ready and not interested.

They're not holding you back from innovation. I would say stop using them as a scapegoat for not trying or when you fail (because I would say a huge number of projects fail/are set aside before they go public or shortly after). "Failure" often means you are slightly better prepared the next go.

A game that only did the browser interface or some other newfangled thing that I can't even imagine yet that I'm sure someone is developing somewhere that intrigued me enough to look into it would mean that I might try it. Or wait until a handful of people did so I could hear what it was like from them. No indivual game developer or thingy developer should actually /wait/ on someone like me to be comfortable or enthusiastic for trying something totally (to me) innovative. They're going to have to plow through with their vision with or without me and if I miss out it is my loss.

Yes, absolutely. I have many that I've had for 20 years or more but especially in the 20 year range because this friends group "met" online in a due date club (when i was pregnant with my firstborn). I've only met a couple of the people but they're not the ones I've been closest to. And I have a few other online buddies that aren't in that "milestone life event" category.

Though I would say that most of the people I am very close to I've spoken with on the phone. Not all though.

I also have a pen pal via snail mail that I corresponded with for 27 years until her death. (She was 54 when I answered her pen pal ad, I've had a few others but not ones that lasted that long. I'm sad that pen palling isn't really a thing anymore, I would totally do that again).

Mostly what I need to have for a true friendship connection with someone it isn't possible to hang out with is more than a couple points of connection. By this I mean just hanging out talking about one hobby isn't enough. Usually there are connections of stage of life, several interests/activities, ect. But sometimes there is a special chemistry that is very much like falling in love (just not romanticly).

So its not a hard line. At least for me.