@RightMeow said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
My real life peeve is my own doing but still...
When you have to buy pretty much everything for a household because you are starting over. UGGGH. Why does it have to cost so much?
Couches are so expensive! Why are they so expensive?!?
I find it baffling that people will say a demographic doesn't make sense when I can assure you there are all types of people everywhere during all parts of history. There were certainly black people out west during cowboy days that probably had some thoughts about slavery. There were definitely non-straight people in 1941 Berlin. Pretty sure Brokeback Mountain probably could've been set during old western times and still been valid.
I am a shitty teacher to little kids, which came as a shock to me because I had always wanted to be a grade school teacher when i was younger but wow is everyone lucky that did not happen. I just do not have the patience for it. Grade school teachers are SAINTS.
We'll be full-remote with a first grader who was already assigned to a literacy group because...well we're not sure if it's an actual learning disability or if she just gets bored and it's nearly impossible to tell at this age. I'm PRETTY sure what they flagged her for (not knowing all her letter sounds) was incorrect and that when they sat her down to do all 26 letter sounds she got bored and started just saying "I don't knoooooow" so they'd leave her alone and let her go do an art activity. They were supposed to evaluate her starting in April buuuuuut...
So I'm terrified. I'm terrified she's going to fall further behind, I'm terrified that I don't have the patience to encourage her like her teachers would be in school since I'm also working. But we've got another two whole weeks until school starts I believe. And I'm not so sure our teachers won't strike about having to go into the classroom even if they're teaching remote so. I guess I'm glad that she only got a couple months of school so she doesn't really know what she's missing yet?
This sounds weird, but it must have killed her to die now.
@grayson I mean, technically you haze the new people by having them do that. No one licks bone twice in the field cause there's better ways to do it.
Unless they really want to.
But seriously it really really REALLY upsets the locals if they hear about it.
If you're on Twitter please check out the #clearthelist and #clearthelists hashtags--if you have any spare cash you can throw it towards amazon lists that teachers post there. These are things that they will otherwise have to purchase themselves for their classrooms. A lot of them have books up there that are only like $6 or like cases of markers/crayons.
A couple of celebrities are picking up on this and retweeting teacher lists and every little bit helps. It's also eye-opening for some people to realize that some districts don't provide ANYTHING and teachers need to buy every little thing you usually see in the classrooms from posters on the walls to the rugs on the floor.
@cupcake Check with your local synagogues and rabbis as well, a lot of them do trips and may be able to offer some kind of scholarship or point you towards things that can help even if you don't do some kind of project around it. For actually planning the trip I always recommend checking out skiplagged (website) or hopper (app) for cheap flights and then if I recall correctly (though it has been uh, over a decade since I was last there) there are lots and lots of amazing hostels around that are usually cheaper than hotels and allow you to get to know your fellow travelers. Though with airbnb in the mix, I don't know that this is still true.
Yeah I just got an equity raise at work and on the one hand I was like hooray a raise! And on the other I was like...so how long have you guys been massively underpaying me? 
@coin I don't want any more kids, it's the only way!
@fortydeuce Logan sounds familiar, but I honestly did not play there very long. I was the Trilony that got exploded in the one damn plot I was ever in. I mostly played with Taye, Sevva, and Zane who, jesus christ, was played by Jensen Ackles and I think I might be the only person in the universe that does not think he's attractive in the slightest, but had two characters involved with people that used him as a PB.
I think he's haunting me.
There was some...pilot guy? That we were working with at one point. But then when the game went sideways, people ended up stuck where they were and we were in a bar. Where no one else was. With no credits coming in, but lots being taken out! And nothing and I mean NOTHING to do or RP about. I think this was the best scene we ever had honestly:
Taye sits behind the space-bar of the Outrider Club, using a microfiber space-rag to wipe down its polished space-chrome surface. Whenever he realizes that he's in the way of the actual bartender, he smiles politely and gets out of her way. Oh, Jynna. He and her have shared many wacky space-adventures. Maybe? When a space-guy comes over, Taye give him a confident space-smile. "Space-hello, my space-friend." The guy gives Taye a subtle space-nod, then wanders off to visit the space-toilet. Basic
Just back from her space-abortion, Trilony takes a seat at the bar. Basic
I mean SPACE-BAR Basic
Taye turns on the space-jukebox. Space-rock comes out. Basic
It's like a space-party in here. Basic
The Space-Eyed Peas come up on stage. "Let's get space-started in here! Let's get space-started, yeah!" Basic
I'm pretty sure I was the most active person on the game and I would RP with everyone! Didn't ever once get me into any plots, though.
I assume you're talking about Griffin. The only plot I was ever in was a total clusterfuck that got me and two other people talked to...but not about how the plot was bad, about how Griffin's feelings were hurt because someone told some people that he had all the plots? Or something. I never actually understood what I was being accused of. Though he did! So, good on you, whoever also noticed that. I mean, the plots being run were actually listed on the front page of the wiki and he was in every single one so it's not like it was a secret!
The only thing I was guilty of was trying to sustain RP on a place that was pretty clearly dead on arrival.
@kestrel How Jews Became White Folks by Karen Brodkin is a great read if you're interested in that subject.
My favorite character, hands down, would have to have been Isabelle on Tenebrae. I had never played a game with dice before, knew nothing about D&D, so I set up a rogue with high social skills figuring I could be a gather information character. Everyone made fun of me for setting up a useless rogue.
I even took Run as a Feat, guys. I took Run. I admit it.
She ended up being one of the most powerful characters on the game thanks to sneak attack specialities at higher levels that took away...I don't even remember. Strength? Con? And then a sword of wounding and a luck blade. She could talk her way into and out of anything. She was completely and totally out for herself and had very little loyalty to anyone. She wouldn't help if there wasn't gold attached to something. She had an insanely high gather information and even though she was a complete bitch, she'd give out information to people (in a mean way!) to get them into plots. She started up an investigation company with her friends (which was really just a way for me to run PrPs for newbies and get them involved in the game before I was staff) that hired contractors, took over the thieves guild at one point, and got roped into saving the city way too many times because she considered everyone else utterly incompetent. She was a leader who didn't take shit from anyone and would call people out on their stupidity instantly. She eventually actually took Leadership and got a baby dragon companion named Havelock who was super polite and called her Auntie, but was otherwise utterly useless cause he was a baby.
There are three stand-out scenes that come to mind:
The Saluven plot, which was one of the better meta-game plots I've ever seen run on a game anywhere (props to Maelstrom!), which was the culmination of like, years of plot pieces moving around before I was even on the game. Isabelle thought she'd figured it all out (she had like 9 of 10 pieces put together!) and went to confront a big NPC with what she had and WHOOPS that 10th piece? Was that that NPC was the bad guy who turned her into a statue and then went about amending his plans based on what the heroes knew. It was so awesome! One, because I was totally blindsided and thought I'd done such a good job of putting it all together (I figured out the secret plan, just not the secret person at the head of it!), and two because Isabelle was insufferable and it was totally humiliating. EVERYONE knew. Everyone! It was great.
During another big City-Is-Under-Siege-Why-Does-Anyone-Live-There plot, I was trying to keep Isabelle out of the Big Plot so that other characters could do things and had her follow up on a different plot where a rival thieves guild that was trying to take over instead. She got "caught" by the leader of that group and they demanded she take them to her Guild, since they had been unable to find it, so that they could raid and slaughter everyone.
She agreed and then led them to the main headquarters of the NPC bad guy for the Big Plot and they all got murdered. I was so proud. The staffer running the scene was like "...this wasn't even something I had considered could happen." So the alternate-guild was wiped out and it helped spawn a scene for lower PCs in the Big Plot (big plots being "solved" by only high level PCs was ALWAYS a big peeve of mine) with a weakened NPC villain.
But she was probably one of my best realized characters, super fun to play (though admittedly hard to take), and if you could stand her for five minutes she'd send you off into All The Plots. Her investigation agency would hire new players, which gave them access to PrPs we'd run for the company (just your average go kill some kobolds/guard a caravan) and also any plot information for things that she'd get from the many, many, MANY legworks I'd do.
She was great and I totally miss playing her.
More importantly you need to define how well known the supernatural is for every day play. If you go with all Slayers activated, have they become mainstream? Does everyone know about them and the monsters they fight now? Or did they activate and did such a good job of killing supernatural stuff that they were able to keep it on the down-low from the general populace? Did it cause monsters on the line to cross over into 'I'm not a baby eater (anymore!)' territory? Are there rocky supernatural alliances? Etc.
But that stuff is going to be important for your regular every day PCs that aren't going to app in as a Slayer or a super/monster of some sort. Part of the fun on Devilshire was that things had to be covered up. Lots of PCP gang wars and meth lab explosions and things and it was fun to watch PCs in the know twist themselves into knots trying to explain what happened to a terrified not in the know PC who just got attacked by a blue bumpy faced...bath salt addict? Sure. Let's go with that.
I mean, when I joined the game here's what happened and it should have been a huge red flag:
A carnival came to town! It was part of a plot. They even built a place on grid for it. A board post said RP would get you into the plot! Me and two or three other people RPed there every. Single. Day. No plot hooks were thrown our way. Eventually, other people started grumbling about this. A new post was put up that people in Group A were getting first dibs on the plot, but to get involved just RP with them!
Someone on the public channel then pointed out the post didn't say WHO was in Group A so how was that possible? They were assured there would be a way in.
My character was a huge goody good, so I put a request in saying I'd like to try to talk to someone in charge to see if she could do like, a can drive donation one night to get people discounts on tickets and help!
No reply. Finally staff comes back and says that won't be possible. the people in the plot don't want any more people in it.
So. The original post was a lie, I guess? A bunch of people stopped logging in after that. I should've been one of them!
@Kestrel oh my god we had an employee absolutely shitting himself over that email and going to the head of IT security (since it was a work machine), who then came to me to say this was a really sensitive situation and what should we do about it.
I laughed and laughed and then was like "didn't you at least google this? It's a scam. They get username and passwords from hacked sites and stick them into a form letter that's riddled with typos."
I mean it's kind of clever but also let me google that for you.
I feel like you're going to get a huge amount of STF refugees. This is like everything we wanted out of that game, but cooler!
One thing to watch out for, and I think a lot of games run into this not just Buffy settings, is that it's REALLY hard to mesh High School and College. What you're going to see are creepy 14 year olds in relationships with the lone 38 year old that teehee they're totally just friends until that TS page gets maved, and when you try to mesh the plots the older people are going to want to keep the younger ones out/protected which is going to lead to a lot of annoyance for everyone. So then you just end up running things for one or the other and making posts that please no don't sex the high schoolers thank you oh look everyone is now 16+ and it's still creepy please stop.
I'd say either keep it entirely high school or go college+.
If you're doing powers, have people run through your chargen trying to break it. People will come up with the weirdest combos that technically aren't against the rules but are totally broken.
And Monster of the Weeks are always popular, even if there's no monster and everyone just gets to go play a prank on a rival school.
Digs are always so hilarious like that. Maybe not in Egypt where I'm told there are generations of diggers in the local area so they might all speak the same language, but when I was in Crete most of the senior staff spoke Greek and English, which was fine, but then the laborers they hired were from Armenia and while they were great with a pickaxe they took down EVERYTHING so we hastily had to learn 'good rock' and 'bad rock' in Armenian to get them to not take down the ancient rock walls we wanted to record first.
Me getting into mushing was a complete accident. When I was young I loved the cartoon gargoyles. We're talking first season. And at the end of one episode it said to go on IRC and join the gargoyles chat room! So I used Homer (D'oh!) to get to that....entirely empty room. Eventually a guy joined and was like "no one is in here but we sometimes do gargoyles RP in this DnD room wanna come?" And I was all of thirteen...maybe fourteen and like "I don't know what any of that means but okay!"
And it was...god what was that old comic, elf only inn? It was just like that. I didn't know it was bad, one crazy guy running both the heroes and the villains, but I LOVED the collaborative storytelling aspect and was hooked.
I drifted away from it later high school years, but kept in contact with some of the friends I made there. My best friend emailed me when I was in college to say they were all hanging out at a place called Project Inifinity and I should make a character. I knew very little about superheroes, so I made the most cliched Mary Sue Irish red head imaginable. With fire powers. Who was also half alien because why not. It was bad. But I met more friends and then got dragged to a dice DnD game and thankfully never got stuck in the dumpster fire that Wod seems to be and I stuck with the hobby for...I think ten years? Took a long break then got an email from someone way back in the day while made me nostalgic for the creativity outlet.
I find in my old age I don't have the tolerance for drama that I used to, but I still really love telling stories with people.
