Posts made by Ninjakitten

@Coin
In a system that had those things, I'd find that totally acceptable. I've never played on a game/with a system that had Doors, but they sounded like an interesting way of handling things.

I've always felt social abilities/powers should affect PCs the same as NPCs until and unless physical abilities/powers stop doing so. That said, I also think they should work as written: if the power says it can make someone DO something, it can. If it says it makes them feel or experience X, then they get to react to that however they feel their character would react to feeling or experiencing X.

Once upon a time, I had a character for whom keeping secrets was a big part of who she was. Someone rolled an ability to persuade her to tell them one of them, and they won. So she told them. I couldn't come up with any really fitting reason she would have, so later, when she had to explain why (which was a pretty good scene also, actually), she basically said she had no idea, it just kind of came out and she had no idea what she was thinking. It's possibly not something that would have happened if it were full consent, but it wasn't, and the other person spent the points to be able to do that, and that's the way the dice fell.

The same character on the same game had someone else's fear and pain from being bullied and beaten dropped into her head, as if it were her experience. The player was very upset at me that she didn't collapse weeping, but that's not how the character would react to those feelings... so she didn't. His power didn't include dictating reactions, so he didn't get to.

I'd be okay with both the idea that a player can have a short list of things that are off the table and the one that certain subject matter are officially consent-only, as long as neither list is so long or broad that it basically makes it all "victim's choice" again. I also think it's reasonable if the difficulty or number of successes needed are raised for things that should be harder (depending on the system). But it really annoys me when we act like points spent on social abilities and powers don't matter and aren't equal to physical ones. If I want to spend my points on being Massive McSmashsmash, then I need to accept that Crafty von GoodIdea may come over and talk me into beating that asshole in the corner up for him, just as much as Crafty needs to accept I may hospitalize him if I don't like his hat.

Yeah, the reminding people they're not the only people around aspect might be pretty handy sometimes.

@The_Supremes
The difference in my head between +vote and +recc is that +recc requires an explanation, and in my experience that seems to have been enough to prevent most of the rewards-for-one-brief pose, since most people aren't willing to do more work to reward someone than that person did to earn it. I think people tend to feel it requires more than "X showed up."

On the other hand, I also find +reccs weirdly hard to write, and where they exist I've always ended up feeling like I was failing the people I play with because of how rarely I actually manage them even when they're highly deserved.

Some of each, but I'd say more the former. The most common way I've ended up on games is to be pulled there by a friend already playing, so I've gotten a character so I could RP -- but then I RP to play the character. I don't app just anything to get on grid; it has to be someone I'm intrigued to explore (who also fits with the setting). I've got a couple character concepts I've had hanging around for ages that have never had a place they fit, and a couple games I never finished apping on because I couldn't find a character I honestly wanted to play who fit the place.

Woke up the other day with a potential solution to a code problem that I'd abandoned in favour of other things several weeks ago, and it's worked.

Just a reminder that this script still exists. It's not perfect or as elegant as I'd prefer (but have not yet been bothered to try to make it) but for quick and dirty I-don't-want-to-see-that, it should still work all right. (If you try it and it doesn't, please let me know.)

@Bug-In-A-Jar
I don't actually see in what way that contradicts what I said. I said there aren't incentives to having a high MSB reputation score, beyond it giving a vague indication of, well, your reputation on the board. That's not an 'incentive' in the way I think most people would define one in that context.

I don't think most people particularly like being downvoted -- I never said no one cared. Some people don't, some just find it funny, some probably take it as a badge of honour, some care quite a bit. However, the impression I have is that many or most posters here consider it kind of childish and crappy behaviour to downvote based on the poster rather than the post. Now, if a poster is consistently being an ass, then someone may genuinely be downvoting the posts for content and it may still look similar for a while. If someone or someones enter a thread antagonistically and suddenly almost every post on the side the new arrival(s) vocally dislike(s) has a couple new downvotes, it's not surprising that people will perceive a connection. We can't currently tell if they're right, since the ability to see who downvoted seems to have broken again.

If a poster's opinion is unpopular enough -- or IMO more likely, the poster's mode of expression and treatment of others is unpopular enough -- to get things to where they can no longer downvote*, maybe that person should step back and look at what they're actually contributing. I don't downvote frequently, but when I do it's most often for a few specific behaviours, ones that I frankly think ought to harm someone's reputation.

I'd like to have the ability to see who downvotes what again, but with or without it I think the system has been working both fine and as designed.

* Although I seem to recall you need to get 10 reputation to downvote, I don't actually know if you lose the ability if you fall below that again.

@Bug-In-A-Jar
There aren't any incentives, beyond a reputation/posts comparison possibly giving a vague indication of whether one's widely considered to be an ass. Even then unless it's actually negative it might just mean you don't say much that moves people either way.

@Coin
I absolutely agree on that point. (Sorry, @Arkandel!)

@Coin

No, it does work. Equivalent: Doors aren't needed because we can walk through walls, but because we can't.

@Coin said in Finding roleplay:

@Arkandel said in Finding roleplay:

Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense but because that is not true.

This sentence doesn't scan.

It actually does, but I had to read it twice. Adding a comma (and possibly emphasis) helps. "Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense, but because that is not true." I.e., the reason rules are needed isn't (etc).

@Ide

Oh, I do that. I like a new location here and there, especially if I'm not feeling otherwise inspired. But it's not how I find RP.

Well, let's see. Currently I'm on two games. One tends to use the public channel and the other uses the OOC Lounge so I'm going to refer to 'the OOC venue' to cover them both.

So, how I go about it tends to go:

1. if I have a paused scene, I check with whoever else was involved if they're around.
2. if there's something in particular my character needs/wants from someone, or something I know someone else needs/wants from mine, I check with them if they're around.
3. if one of my closest friends is online, I usually check if they're up for RP.
   3a) if so, are they up for more people or just one on one? If the former, go to step 4; otherwise just play.
4. I check +who to see if anything's going on in public.
   4a) if so, I ask someone what's up and/or if there's room for more people.
5. if there isn't or it's full/not appropriate for some other reason, I ask in the OOC venue whether anyone's up for RP.
6. if no one is, I either go do something else, put my character somewhere public IC in case someone decides to show up, or both (if it's a 'something else' that still lets me see if someone comes in or pages).

I haven't said a lot since we got onto this because... it's tiring. It's exhausting, having essentially the same conversation repeatedly, and I don't have a lot of energy to spare to begin with. This is one of the reasons that people link things rather than write another post: we have already had this conversation, you just weren't there at the time. We've had it a hundred times, with a thousand other people coming from your basic point of view.

Some of the identities I have/am read to have are privileged. Others are marginalized. This is probably true of most of us, though the balance is obviously going to vary. So I want to make clear that when I talk about things members of privileged classes are prone to, this means me too -- I've been made aware of them, and I work at changing or avoiding them, but being marginalized in other ways hasn't magically made me immune where I'm not. It may make it easier to see once it's pointed out, I don't know.

Anyway. People in a privileged position tend to enter these conversations with the mindset that the marginalized people should convince us. They should lay out their case calmly and rationally to be judged by our objective, unbiased view. They WANT something, therefore they should meet our demands if they hope to get it. Do we think it in those terms? No, probably almost never. But that's what our society has always taught us, and what our actions and arguments often betray, nonetheless.

When we focus on tone in one of these discussions, that's what we're doing: we're putting the marginalized people in the position of children (don't take that tone with me, young lady!) or other subordinates who owe us respect and 'civil' address if they hope to convince us -- and surely they should want to; our opinion on their lives and experiences should be valued! People in privileged groups are generally, whether they realize it or not, used to having their opinion be the one that matters most. We're used to seeing ourselves as objective, free from bias, logical, rational. But we're not. Humans just aren't. We try! Many of us do our damnedest. But we don't and can't fully succeed. The difference is that when we're coming from the privileged position, society tells us our view is clear and correct. And we tend to believe it.

When we ask to have things explained to us, of course we usually mean well. We want to understand; we don't want bad things to happen to other people; we want to fix things. We've just come into this conversation, and often we feel attacked or rejected when marginalized people don't engage with us the way we want, expect, and on some level, feel that we deserve.

The thing is, the people in the other half of the conversation haven't just entered it. They live it, and if they're talking about it, they've probably already explained it 5, 10, 20, 100 times. Like I said, people get tired. People have other things they need to do with their lives and time rather than spend an hour writing -- again -- a personalized (and polite! Never forget polite, carefully worded, and appreciative that this privileged person is willing to listen!) answer to the same question. So often a link is given to somewhere it's already been answered, or the person professing a desire to be an ally is told to research it. And this is often taken as a dismissal or rejection, because we tend to believe that we deserve that answer, we deserve their time and attention, or at least we certainly do if they want us to care about their problem(s).

We don't deserve it, not really. And we should care regardless. Even when we feel to our toes that the treatment we're getting isn't FAIR. Once in a while we're even right. But I have never seen it be less fair than the issue that's actually being discussed. It's not easy trying to learn how to listen to and engage with these discussions without derailing, or how to let go of the reflex to focus on how the discussion appears to relate to us personally. It's just important.

Another issue with the 'not all men' response is: when your reaction to hearing about a problem is "but I don't do that!", you're taking a discussion about something that seriously affects a group of people who are already usually in a marginalized position and making that discussion about YOU, the person already usually in the privileged position.

It's not only in discussions of sexism; it happens in discussions about other forms of oppression as well, all the time. Constantly. Not the same phrase, obviously, but the same reaction: but I don't do that, but we don't all do that! We/they know it's not everyone, but when people are trying to discuss and make visible the kinds of mistreatment they regularly face, it's kind of a dick move to demand they instead spend their time and effort reassuring members of the privileged class that oh no, we don't mean YOU, we know YOU'RE one of the good ones. And that's one of the things 'not all men' does.

I bet an awful lot of people would want Epic D.

I'd probably end up doing it with Epic/Advanced as the first word because it would make what you had to type more predictable, but anything with quite similar names makes you type up to where it's unique anyway in most systems. Alternatively, maybe you could just use <> instead of () for Epic and Advanced? So, Library <Epic>? Then if that can be further specialised you'd have Library <Epic> (Occult), I suppose. Or Library (Occult) <Epic>, maybe. Hm. I'd think you'd still have to type about the same amount, though, wouldn't you? I'm not sure how you have it implemented.

This isn't particularly useful of me, but: although I probably wouldn't end up playing because I don't multigame very well these days, I quite like the idea in theory and I think the thinking so far is interesting.

It seems like the terms may be changing between parts, though -- Structure and Comfort don't seem to have definitions anywhere, Power is only in there as Technology (power) and I'm not sure if that's the same thing, and Health is a Resource Stat rather than a resource, so I don't know how the bonus/penalty points would work. It says they're from the nine Resources, but the listed bonus/penalty items don't seem to be Resources.

Also, if they get two in the bonus and 0 in the penalty and we ARE talking the nine Resources, they only get 9 points, not 10, since basically the penalty's point is going to bonus.

When things go wrong (or at least really unexpected) and that's really why the scene and/or aftermath turns out to be memorable and awesome.