@Lotherio Sometimes, immediate displays of concern/empathy can come off as thirsty for gossip/drama when you're already on-edge and feeling like you might be a spectacle. If you are told to piss off, I'd hope you take into account that they might in fact be sensitive/vulnerable at the moment & not entirely write them off as a person worth concern.
@faraday If telling people to use OOC I'm uncomfortable with this was in any way a solution to the problem of people being able to establish their own personal boundaries, this thread wouldn't exist, the problem wouldn't exist. It's disheartening to have to keep saying that, because while I do agree (and have said so at least once) that it works for some people, it doesn't work for the people this one particular thread is trying to find actionable, meaningful solutions for, after the tried and true and fallible options already in place just have not been enough. I get it, you think my idea is useless. We absolutely don't have to keep discussing my idea! I am open to and actively seeking other new ideas.
The point has been made, people for whom different measures could be beneficial have spoken, people have criticized the point and the measures suggested, people have made suggestions & one game has even made what I'd consider a positive amendment to their existing policy after consideration of the conversation in this thread. People have engaged with what I'd consider almost universal good faith, whether in favor of or against the ideas brought forth, and that's always cool to see.
Code like this can't exist in a vacuum and so I don't expect any game to plug-n-play the idea without first considering their game culture, existing measures, and whether it's worth it time/effort-wise for them. If the thread has at least made people take a moment to consider what more can be done to help players defend their boundaries in text-based games, it's a win for me & we don't have to beat the horse to death trying to come to a community-wide consensus - there isn't one, and that's okay.
@Tinuviel said in Model Policies?:
@Pandora said in Model Policies?:
I don't think a policy that tries to police the nuance of a discussion to the degree of ascertaining whether or not a conversation is based on something that could or could not eventually possibly lead to an argument falls under OP's umbrella of short, clear, reasonable MUSH policies but that's my unsolicited opinion.
True. But I think that deciding on what kind of conversations you're going to allow, for lack of a better term, is an important discussion to have when forming policies. Because you're going to have to police conversations, not right away necessarily but eventually.
Policy: Keep it civil, people, and if staff says to take your conversation off the channel, don't argue about it. Just be cool. Like the Fonz. 
@TheOnceler Well for one, universities cancel anthologies sometimes based on the fear of backlash over an author's contribution based on things they've written that have upset the internet as well. I mean, If it's too hard for you to go Google authors that have cancelled/delayed their written works due to outcry on Twitter that fictional depictions of what-the-fuck-ever in their novels mean they are flaming bigots to be shunned - that's on you, I guess? Idk. This is a conversation, not a lecture. If you're curious about a supposed phenomenon, go read about it instead of throwing a fit with your hands on your metaphorical hips like a 5 year old.
@faraday is 100% on point with this one. Like, I get the argument people make about the time/effort/artistry/craft/etc. of novel-writing vs. roleplaying, but I'm honestly at a point in my life where I'm happy adamantly advocating for spades to be called spades. Saying 'roleplaying isn't writing' is not more correct than saying 'roleplaying is not the same process as novel-writing' and if that's what she meant, that's what she should have said, in order to avoid people writing things about written games like 'this isn't writing'.
@Tinuviel Creative writing outlet? Text-based roleplaying is a goldmine of opportunity for anyone that loves fiction, but unfortunately in the earliest days it was plagued by the need to have certain things - regular, steady internet access, source books, a familiarity with thematic information, uninterrupted free time, etc. These things weren't as readily available to people from lesser means.
Now, if ever there was a time, it is NOW, to share something we love with people where there is no boundary, no cost-barrier, and less time-obligations than ever before. You might disagree as to the merit of MUing these days and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree, but if there are going to be 29 pages about diversity, let's at least consider PLAYER diversity.
Inviting Rachel Dolezal to your Ladies Who Lunch club doesn't make it more diverse. Pretending to be black doesn't add more blackness to a game.
@Groth said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
There's probably a word for doubling down on a misunderstanding until it becomes a slapfight but based on Wiktionary I don't think 'whitesplain' is the right one.
So you cherry-pick what they said, leave out the fact that they tagged POC not even remotely involved in what you claim was the misunderstanding (policing sexuality?), and come to the conclusion that there was no whiteplaining to see here.
'Kay.
I've never LARPed, someone told me once that a black girl couldn't be a fairy because there's no fairies in Africa (not a racist person, just a stickler for historical plausibility) & that's sort of colored my willingness to do pretendy things outside the anonymity of the interwebz. But this looks very cool and fancy, if a super-long train ride from London.
So as to not piss on the parade else-thread:
Yet another edition of Vampire the Masquerade. Fueling no doubt another deluge of WoD cookie-cutter MUSHes this year. It's like reinventing the wheel over and over again & it's literally not hurting me in any way but it's still irking my nerves.
Incentivizing taking the backseat can quickly become problematic in more ways than one.
For example, there are many, many players that eschew the limelight. They enjoy taking the backseat, they don't ever actually want the limelight. So you pour rewards and XP onto these background characters...and they never die because they don't take the big risks, and they get more and more powerful/rich because they're being consistently rewarded, but they aren't inclined to use their power in any meaningful way, so you get these non-confrontational dinosaur-minions becoming the living shield of whoever is their buddy, disincentivizing anyone from going against them because conflict leads to Ser Gregor Clegane showing up.
Secondly, you wind up with multiple avenues for humble-bragging, which I'm sure at least some of you agree is the worst sort. There's the 'Even though it shall cost me my life, I humbly invoke whatever punishment it may be to valiantly smite the dragon and save the day, worship me from here on out because I'll be dead afterward and I need you to give me praise and pet my head a lot first.' And also the 'Staff sucks because the only reason I didn't stick my neck out in that plot was because they said they wanted people to be in the background, I have (insert long rant about dice and modifiers here) and could have EASILY done (X thing, where X could have resulted in death/dismemberment) way better than So-n-So, and they totally didn't notice me not-doing-it (along with the other 20 or so people that didn't do it).'
And then there's the simple fact that in games with risk, it's much easier/safer to not stick your neck out, so there's already a lot of hobby-wide not-doing-anything-unless-it's-a-staff-run-plot anyway. So you wind up with people not stepping up to do anything even more than they already don't now. If there's a dragon to slay and 10 people show up and none of them want to lose life or limb so they all want to be the person supporting the hero but there's no hero...what then. Or if one does step forward, gets killed, and the other nine make off with the treasure's riches... that might work in tabletop, but people usually aren't playing MU*s to be cannon fodder.
That was a lot of naysaying. Let me sum up by saying, if you want to incentivize people, reward the behavior you want to see. Reward content-creation more heavily than participation. Reward group-efforts. Don't make Losing the new Winning, make cooperative, compelling story-writing the end-goal, and foster a community that shares that goal. And when I say foster it, I mean it. Shout it from the rooftops when players have done well, because more than XP, more than money, what players want is to feel appreciated.
My boss is Greek, which is irrelevant. More importantly, he is 'not racist, but'.
Sidebar: 'Not racist, but' should be a thing. Is it a meme? It should be a meme. I'm going to make it a meme. One second:
Right, back to my boss.
He is a Holocaust denier. He agrees that it happened, in some form, but cites wackjob conspiracy websites that say things like 'gas chambers wouldn't have actually worked like that'. It blows my mind really, that people can have not just these opinions, but also the gall to say them out loud.
And for the record, lest anyone be confused:
Almost any sentence that begins "I'm 'not racist, but'..." is probably fucking RACIST.
@apos said in Heroic Sacrifice:
People will tolerate catastrophic losses no problem as long as it doesn't undermine how they picture their character, but if you basically ever suggest their character is less cool than they think it is, a lot of players will fight that to their dying breath, and would way rather be banned while throwing a meltdown of epic proportions than take that.
This right here, 1000x. Not that I'm advocating for anyone having a meltdown, but this takes me back to Firan, where if staff decided to come at you, you were better off hoping for a quick death than jail --> the public shaming --> speeches --> eventual grandiose execution. Because it's your story, and having it dragged over the coals in the 'wrong' direction is way worse than simply having it cut short.
@tragedyjones said in Interest Poke - Fallout Canada:
@pandora said in Interest Poke - Fallout Canada:
@tempest said in Interest Poke - Fallout Canada:
Yeah, you really need to focus on how ethnically diverse the setting is, when it's going to be 200 years in the future after a nuclear war devastates the entire planet.
It would make sense actually, especially from a Vault standpoint, to have a wide range of diversity. If a small group is meant to repopulate the planet, a genetic spread is vital.
That isn't actually what the Vault's were for.
Regardless of the government experimentation purposes, they were advertised as safe havens for people in the event of a nuclear holocaust, and the point of saving people is the continuation of the species. Plus, the G.E.C.K.s were intended to help the inhabitants create a viable civilization in the post-nuclear world after the All Clear signal is sent, meaning there was at least some intention for them to do that. So circling back to my original point, yes, that was at least partially what the vaults were for.
Never read these threads backwards. This just happened to me:
@JinShei said in Why We Don't Make New Friends Anymore (Or Creepers Do Creepy Things):
My Foster sister was Fred West's barmaid, and they often babysat her kid. She was always an amazing judge of character...
Me: Oh, who is Fred? scrolls back
@Auspice said in [Why We Don't Make New Friends Anymore (Or Creepers Do Creepy
The worst was when Fred was in my shower, yes.
Me: What? Who the hell is Fred and why is he in someone's shower? Better click the link.
clicks link, spends 20 minutes reading Wiki page of the Fred West murder spree in shock and horror MEANWHILE THE WHOLE TIME THINKING THIS GUY WAS IN @AUSPICE'S SHOWER ONCE
At this point, you're all about as off-topic as criticisms in an ad thread.
The single wierdest casting choice to me is Fringilla because unlike a lot of other characters she has a lot of family and is supposed to hail from what is basically fantasy france. Does that mean all of Toussaint will now be sub-saharan African or what?
Looking at my recent family holiday photos, in which my kid is the only brown kid playing with her predominantly blonde-haired, blue or hazel-eyed cousins, I can safely assure you that one or two black people in a family does not make the entire bloodline black, and I find this statement/query/line of thought vaguely offensive. I'm not calling you racist or anything, but it did raise my hackles in that 'what, we dirtied your entire gene pool by showing up once?' kind of way.
For the record, NONE of my close friends that play MUSHes (not MUDs or RPIs) are on MSB. Some might have usernames, but haven't posted in months if not years. MSB is a small community of people who play the games made and run by the people in this community. There are mushes that aren't on TMC or mudstats, that don't have forums (but still have Discord servers, alas). Imagine if everyone on Arx was active on MSB? Then imagine if everyone on every MUSH was active on MSB? MSB is a loud droplet in a much bigger pool than many of you may think.
@nyctophiliac Tati I checked out Vivianna though, and while her OTT cheerfulness is grating, as someone that spent several hours wrestling my giant afro into its this is a professional & appropriate hairstyle! disguise for a job interview today - I'm subscribing. Thanks for this one.
