Posts made by MrMaker

Another thing,

I used to and I still hear/see people spending like TWO OR FIVE HOURS fucking negotiating with players. As a staffer, you are not there to be their friend, you are there to be their game leader. You make the decisions. Your job is not to change their mind about your policies, your job is to enforce your policies.

Enforcing your policies means explaining them, showing the player how to act in accordance to them, and making sure the player understands the consequences for not acting in accordance to them. You can do this in a manner that is completely respectful and professional. NOBODY is entitled to exceptions to rules everyone else follows, so NO, you can not negotiate an exception. NOBODY is entitled to acting like a shithead, especially on an online platform where (a.) you have a backspace button (b.) you can come back when you feel better, no matter how bad your gluten allergies are or how many heart attacks you've had. And NOBODY needs an explanation as to why you have expectations for courtesy among players and staff.

Yes, you want to be just/fair and respectful to your players, even the asshole ones. You will need to listen to them because their feedback, even when rudely stated, is necessary for you to be a good leader. But in so doing, you need to be on top of your shit. You need to be aware whether the discussion you're having is confronting the bad behavior, or whether it's discussing its cause and context. Because you can discuss its cause and context for a year and not fix the bad behavior.

ETA

YOUR STAFF ARE PLAYERS MAN

I really like By Right Of Blood. With the recent slow but stead influx of new players I am optimistic about it, but I am sad that I have to work uphill since I let it get completely ruined into a Staff And The Superfriends Sandbox during 2013 and 2014.. (I didn't know who Yseulte@HM was and let her essentially be head staff)

The way I did it was by suffering that stupid-ass "I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings" delusionalness. I did not have the common sense to realize that if you don't want to take corrective action on a staffer because "they're my friend," pick up your nutsack and do it the fuck anyway.

That 5-part thing I mentioned doing to players, you do to staff too:

Like,

(1) I noticed you haven't been logging in to your staff alt.
(2) I know RL can be really distracting and stressful, but the game needs to move forward. If there is something going on that's keeping you that I can help with then we can talk about it later, but in the meantime your absence from staff means that your jobs and your plot are going stagnant and the slowdown is discouraging players.
(3) So, I need to know by tomorrow whether you can get these jobs and scenes moving within the next two days. .
(4) If you can't, I will need to reassign your +jobs and involve an additional storyteller in your plots so they can move forward until you can make time.
(5) Do you have any questions or concerns about this?

And then keep and log that conversation so that later on if they fuck up again you can have another chat with them Because you're going to get "you never told me"-ed.

(1) Hey, I need to talk to you about those +jobs and scenes we talked about last week because I haven't seen your involvement in them.
(2) I've had to rearrange those +jobs to StaffJimbo and StaffBertha and the workload is unevenly distributed as a result so some +jobs are taking longer to fulfill.
(3) I need you to make a decision whether or not you have the time to continue staffing here.
(4.) If you choose to remain on staff but your +jobs continue to need reassignment, then I will need to go ahead and remove you from staff and find someone who has time.
(5.) Do you have any questions? I know that this may be disappointing. Please don't be mistaken: you are always welcome to play here. But if the game can't move forward, then there's no game to be a player on.

See, it's beautiful. If they get butt hurt to the point where they stop being your friend, then you did not lose a very valuable friendship, because apparently the only currency in your friendship was an online game with strangers about imaginary people.

So me and a buddy made up The Problem Player Field Guide and I train staff with it.

Personally,

I don't do a long list of "this is what asshole behavior is not allowed here" rules because everybody already knows what good and bad behavior is, it's not ignorance that causes bad behavior, it's disrespect. I also am very anti house-rules set up for 'mechanical fairness' for the exact same reason. People put "mechanical fairness" house rules because "what if it's abused?" Well, if it's abused, you tell that asshole in particular to stop abusing it or else you'll take the ability away from them.

The corrective action that needs to occur should be contained to the people the problematic behavior is affecting and only those people; nobody needs to know that Bob is putting on a show in the OOC lobby unless they're suffering through it. When you 'fix' a problem and then you post this big ass announcement to uninvolved people I suppose you could say "this shows players we're proactive", but you're supposed to do that shit anyway, and to me that's like posting an announcement that I processed someone's +job.

Players requiring corrective action need to be told

1. The problem
2. Why it's a problem (not why it's wrong, they know better)
3. The proposed solution
4. Consequences for not cooperating
5. Do you understand?

And always, always back up your shit on the consequences you intend to give them.

So I understand Spanish.

But where I went to school we weren't allowed to speak that evil beaner language and so my Spanish is hugely passive. I live in an area where people don't speak Spanish so I go to my parents if I want that. So my mother speaks to me in Spanish, I respond in Spanglish, but my dad doesn't like not knowing what's going on so I don't speak Spanish around him out of respect, and I mainly use it when shit talking yuppies or giving Brazilians directions on MMOs.

And I just made a business call and I totally got way too goddamn nervous to even think in Spanish because I never speak in Spanish so I just was like SONRIA Y DILE SI the whole way through

I am a Mexi-Can't :(.

Which of you goons can I practice Spanish with on Skype? I'm a_kazlauskas.

ETA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpdeCdUC9r4

Aaaand I'm back from the hurricane party that called itself a wedding

And tomorrow it's back to ST Wednesdays and Thursdays, wooo! I notice there are about five more of y'all, some from MuSoapBox, so, I'm postin' to let you know I'll be on at 7 PM CST to corral ya'll for a scene.

I'mma love u down by the fire, @silver

Whooooo okay so RiloKiley (Yamazaki) and I made ourselves a poor man's wiki on Wikidot.

Wiki is at tex-mux.wikidot.com and will be turned into a Real Wiki if we get enough player interest to do our launch which is currently June 21. @DarkDeleria, I haven't put in everything everything since we're looking for storytellers who are gonna wanna have their own input and stuff but there's a Freehold, a Metaplot, a Goblin Market, and info on what we accept and how to app in. There are rules on how we intend to do things house-rules wise and policies wise.

You wanna tool around on it, it's tex-mux.mmlx.us port 1512

@Derp said:

I am -so tired- of this lame-ass argument How many users on this forum were born slave owners? None. Our parents weren't. Our grandparents weren't. Hell, our great-grandparents weren't. Throwing up shit that ended 150 years ago as if you've personally suffered under yoke of some plantation owner? Weak. Your parents didn't. Their parents didn't. And on and on back, just like above.

So on my father's side of the family in East Texas, there are slave owners and I am fairly certain that they still have the plantation property. Then there's the married in side of my mother's family who were in the klan, but somehow decided to make exceptions for Mexicans.

Aw shucks, y'all are making me blush

A_kazlauskas on the Skypes.

Right now I'm riding shotgun to Navasota, but I will be back to put the wiki back up by let's say Wednesday, since I will be back Monday and would need some typing time. In the meantime I am kinda putting together some policies into the in game news files via mukluk... Because I am freaking riding shotgun to Navasota D:. Since I AM looking for staff, the policies aren't set in stone, but I don't intend to open until the policies are agreed on and set up.

@7Wonders I let five or six people host games on tex-mux.mmlx.us and I pretty much just set them up and let them have at it without being involved. One 'em was a Star Wars game I think, one of 'em was a Mage game, one of 'em was uhhh ... Shit, some post-apocalyptic thing? I don't really remember, people'd just tell me "I want to host my blah blah game" and so I'd let 'em.

So, I honestly don't know which Tex Mux you mean, sorry x_x. The one this one is is the one that was just Changeling in the first place that was around in 2012 for about, ... Hm, four, five months? It was short-lived, when it lulled because I didn't have the time to make it story-driven I just killed it so I could dust it off later. It was Changeling only, er, Changeling or Humans technically.

@DarkDeleria The wiki page is down for now since I gotta fix this stupid SSL error thing so I just blocked people from using it. Sorry about that! Is there any specific information you have in mind so I can prioritize getting that to you/out?

So, my buddy and I want to dust off our Changeling game and are excited about it. If I can get one or two extra storytellers besides myself and Yamazaki so we can do backup and parallel storylines to keep things moving, then I will open this game.

Wiki is at tex-mux.wikidot.com and will be turned into a Real Wiki if we get enough player interest. You wanna tool around on it, it's tex-mux.mmlx.us port 1512.

It's set in present-day Austin, because its film and music festivals provide a perfect source of human emotion and imagination for Changelings to feed off of and it’s riddled with unique locations which can be mined for NWOD stank factor, like the Cathedral Of Junk or the Driskill Luxury Hotel with its haunted mirrors and paintings which could be gateways to the hedge. Hell, we even have our own curse (The Curse Of Shoal Creek). And what better backdrop for the Scarecrow Ministry than the bat bridge?

I have a metaplot that revolves around the freehold doing business with a goblin market in its need to monitor and protect an active gateway into the hedge; characters will have decide who to trust among the characters who give them resources and options. The general theme I have in mind with it is, "Is the price of betrayal worth your safety?". We can talk it over to develop it further if you are interested in STing.

The grid exists, the CG exists, the diceroller's there, the sheets are pretty. There's a Pledgecrafter for pledges that are for immediate approval without any perusal or interference from Staff, so you only have to stop for staff if you need some kind of complex pledge that's gonna last a year or involve the whole damn frehold(s). There are a few places I will add to the grid, but it's got enough going on. The hedge is scripted so that it changes over time (becoming more and more tame the more it's RPed in, or more and more wild the more it's left alone). All it needs is some more storytellers.

Right now it’s Keep Austin Wyrd, a Changeling game through and through. It may/can, however, be expanded. There are cities none too far from Austin (in Texas terms since you can drive for 10 hours and still be in Texas) that would compliment Geist well, like Dallas for Dealey Plaza, or San Antonio because it’s Dia De Los Muertos central. I’mma focus on Changeling first, though.

So, finding players is one thing, but would you be interested in storytelling?

Your staff bit name would be a band name, since we’re the land of starfucking hipsters. It better be something that I’ve probably never heard of before. We need someone named Deathcab or PostalService on our team.

So just to repeat them details,

Wiki is at tex-mux.wikidot.com and will be turned into a Real Wiki if we get enough player interest. You wanna tool around on it, it's tex-mux.mmlx.us port 1512.

@Yamazaki

BECAUSE I AM MAKING WEDDING CAKES AND FORUMING FROM MY PHONE

And USPS fucking LOST my brothers wedding rings. So uh, we're going to go find a good bubblegum machine tomorrow I guess?? Motherfuckers. I think it's because the rings are made out of an empty.357 shell casing, since it had trouble getting through Customs. I don't fucking know.

@DarkDeleria @Admiral haha! Well it was called Keep Austin Wyrd since our thing is "keep Austin weird". The area is very close to this winding cave system and then there's Dead Man's Hole beyond the city limits and just all these cool places that have that weird factor. Add in the festivals like Eeyore's and SXSW and ACL and you have a place for Changelings to harvest glamor like junkies, and then you have mystery horror fodder like how Austin is the place of the first serial killer in either the US or Texas, and he s the reason why we have the Moonlight Towers. Just, yeeesss all I need is a partner storyteller so I can also focus on By Right Of Blood.

I had this Changeling game set in Austin that I want to resurrect. It failed because I didn't actually storytell for it since I was in college and I delegated it to other people I didn't communicate well enough with, but I was 19 and an idiot with no job experience and no communication skills. And now I'm 25 and an idiot, but with job experience in retail (thus dealing with assholes skills) and communication skills, so think I could start it again and actually make it cool.

'Cuz I live in Austin and know its history and the Weird Things that can be found and had NWOD stank put on them (like the mirror room, the Maximillian room, in the Driskill hotel and the "haunted" paintings on the various floors, like the one on the 5th floor of the girl who supposedly died on the grand staircase).

I also still want to do Geist too. But I also just have a Changeling game ready to go. x_x.

@Sunny Oh, right, that. Yeah, I forgot that there is a +jail command. It puts you in a room and makes you unable to use channels and unable to leave and logs your commands and notifies you that your commands are being logged. It should can also make you unable to page people. It doesn't right now, just, I know how I would make it happen.

I'll think about it!

Some of y'all asked me "what can I do, I can't code but I want to help," well,

This here

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D2QLOc4fC2EEdo0fsn8mXPa3C91Ff2IDbMnrwuhAqMI/edit?usp=sharing

is instructions on data entry I need to make shit happen faster.

@Sunny

I get it, it's a valid thing to need to think about!

Well, where there's a will, there's a way. IDK if you saw the original post I edited since it was too long but the too long wasn't some kind of like HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME I SHIT EXCELLENCE, it was me rambling about this one time I stumbled onto Ratkin anal sex, and I edited it out since it was ... wildly not on topic.

Honestly to me, if you get sitebanned, you should ... just... be sitebanned. Like if you're that much of an asshole you really just don't need to be on here. Too bad, so sad, really. I guess this isn't a feeling everybody has, but, that's how I feel about it. If you shoplift from a single store at a mall, you are banned from the whole mall, as far as I know. The other stores aren't like "oh no, give them a chance."

@Sunny

<edited because I am way too longwinded wtf>
It is probably possible to @hook the page command so that a person who has a given attribute like "_douchebag=game name(s)" can't page someone on that game, and then channel locks and if you remove their &_game attribute , +jobs code doesn't work for them and they can't access your OOC lobby or use your channels.

I personally feel like if someones' that much of an asshole that they need to go away forever a siteban is not effective (because you have proxies and changing IP addresses) and other means are necessary in the first place. I have only MU*ed since 2008 so I could be totally wrong and ignorant, but of the two people I've ACTUALLY had to force to leave, I didn't use a siteban to do it. Both of them took about twenty to thirty minutes to confront and handle. Both of them got dramatic but it was nothing that @disable logins for 20 minutes didn't fix permanently.

YES

GET STAFF
MAKE A GRID
HAVE SPACE VAMPIRES WITH LASER BEAMS SHOOTING OUT OF THEIR EYES

edit: LASER BEAMS SHOOTING OUT OF THEIR TITS

ALMOST BUT NOT REALLY CHICKEN SISIG FOR THE IMPATIENT

1. A pound of ground chicken.
2. Like a third or half a pound of minced up chicken liver, OR since you probably don't like liver, the point of the chicken liver is to make it all bitter-savory with a sweet aftertaste, and add some fattiness to it. So you can take 2 cans of mushrooms and mince those, they have like no flavor so you'll be able to do this: Spice them with something aromatic and/or bitter (I crush fennel seeds), something dry (paprika, goes with fennel) and something mildly sweet (cinnamon). If you make chicken adobo without hcicken liver you might could try this next time to see how it goes. It isn't an exact substitute but it does give you the bitter-savory-sweet-aftertaste shit liver is going for without being liver.
3. Mix that together in a pan on the stovetop and gradually spice it with garlic + soy sauce + a leetle bit of vinegar + not-really-calamansi-juice: So, for fake calamansi juice, if you mix lemon and orange juice together, you're golden. If you don't even have that because you're me, you can mix sugar and lemon or lime juice with vinegar and/or jalapeno juice because that takes care of the vinegar part.
4. If you didn't use chicken liver, then put in about as much mayonnaise as you have a thumb, and stir that in until you can't see it anymore, because that way you're substituting the fattiness that the liver would have given. I promise you will not taste the mayonnaise.