Best posts made by Sparks

@Auspice said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

Something I have also been considering throughout this thread whenever the 'Staff are volunteers!' comes up: volunteer work is still work. If you volunteer for an organization IRL, you are expected to comport yourself as a professional and you don't really get to pick and choose (generally) what you do. You might get to choose a department or request a 'top 3,' but then you're handed work. You do that work.

There's some merit to this, yes.

But I feel like this isn't "you are a volunteer at a business".

This is "you volunteered to host a tabletop game for local gamers, whether or not you know them", and then being told by someone else, "Cool. Here's the code of ethics and professionalism which all GMs are expected to abide by."

Yes, if you are GM'ing for a specific organization—if you're running games at a convention for WotC or Paizo—you do have a set of rules you're expected to adhere to, and which you agree to when you sign up to do that for them. But if you are running a game in your house, you are not running it on behalf of anyone else. You do not have to sign anything before you sit down to run a game, not even if you post an open invite on the board at the gaming shop and allow people you don't even know to come.

Generally, MU*s are not run on behalf of another group. If you are running an official D&D MU* for WotC? Yeah, then WotC is going to probably set certain rules and guidelines for you, because you are doing this for them. But most of us who choose to run a game are doing that on our own behalf.

If you are not the headwiz on a game, you absolutely have to adhere to the rules the headwiz makes; you are volunteering on that game. If I ever lose my mind and actually make/run a game as headwiz ever again, I definitely have a sort of 'professional code' as to some guidelines to aim for when GM'ing—to try to spread around RP fairly equally, to make sure NPCs are never in the spotlight, etc.—and I would expect my staffers to try to adhere to them.

But I don't think we get to draft a set of standards and then demand that every headwiz who opens a game is expected to hold to that list. Especially not if we're including things like "you are obligated to GM for every player when they ask, even those who make you miserable or bore you to tears or even creep you out on some level you cannot articulate, as though you were staring into the cold, dead eyes of a killer; you are also forbidden from GM'ing any more for the people who actually make your job a joy than you do for the ones who make you miserable".

If that makes sense? I dunno. I may be talking in circles here. I just feel like we're no longer just saying "what's do you feel is the difference between an NPC and a normal PC played by a staffer" but now trying to define actual codified standards of behavior for those NPCs—and for how to GM in general—which we have no ability or authority to enforce. And it feels like we're prepared, as a community, to be indignant and point fingers if people who never even pledged to use those standards on their game violate them in any way.

@insomniac7809 said in RL Anger:

At my place of business, the temperature seems to just be permanently set to 'wrong'

A couple of months ago, our HVAC system at work started acting a little inconsistent; different parts of the fourth floor were at different temperatures. Over in the HR pod it was freezing cold (by everyone's standards), while over at the other end of the floor it was consistently too hot (by everyone's standards). However, building management didn't consider it serious enough to deal with as a priority.

A couple of weeks ago, the HVAC system started making a sustained, horrific, ear-piercing shearing-metal screech, and then began to emit a smokey smell.

Building management fixed the HVAC pretty damned promptly.

It's so nice to have the office a proper temperature again. Though I'm still not entirely convinced one of my co-workers didn't sabotage the system deliberately to force the issue; we are an engineering firm, and we have access to the roof and HVAC shed...

@thesuntsar said in MU Things I Love:

when people put hilarious summaries in the @rs

I have spent a lot of time in the past few years trying to come up with some ridiculous ones. I wish I still had a list of them, honestly!

There was like a week where I managed to write every randomscene as a Pokemon reference. Including at least one which was along the lines of "A wild <PLAYER> appears! <PLAYER> uses DIRE WARNING! It's SUPER EFFECTIVE! AISLIN has HEADACHE!"

@PuppyBreath said in RL Anger:

My job wasn't paying me what we agreed I'd be paid, so I started applying to another job (didn't actually end up finishing the application process - it was on indeed) and was up front about the fact that I plan on moving this summer so I'm looking for something temporary, and they called my current job to tell them I'm moving and got me fired. So I'm unemployed again with only my last shitty paycheck in the bank.

As someone who (as head of one of our software sub-divisions at work) has to deal with interviews and hiring decisions... pardon my language, but that is some seriously unprofessional bullshit.

I generally won't even call the most recent reference on a resumé unless a candidate has expressly told me they are either no longer at that job, or that they've already informed folks there of an intent to leave. Screwing up their current employment with no heads-up to them is terrible, and 10x worse if you aren't actually going to hire them.

All the scowls for whoever pulled that.

@peasoupling said in Alternate Universes, OR, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fanfic:

A lot of Great Literary Classics are basically fanfiction. I mean, the Divine Comedy is self-insert fanfic, of all things.

You could make an argument that Virgil's Aeneid is crossover fanfic of Homer's Illiad, too, inasmuch as it takes an otherwise minor character from Homer's work, writes a big heroic story around him that basically starts right at the end of the previous "canon" work, and then retcons him into the backstory of another franchise (by making him Romulus and Remus' ancestor) in order to justify a preferred headcanon (or, in this case, to tie together a bunch of historical events and justify the legitimacy of the Julio-Claudian dynasty).

Yes, I'm simplifying that, but the analogy isn't really inaccurate.

Writing a fanfic (yeah, okay, so I write fanfic of a French parkour superhero romance cartoon; everyone needs a side hobby) and posting the first chapter, only to immediately start getting comments posted on it like "It is too early for me to be crying like this" or "thanks, this broke me".

Yesgood... I will drink the readers' tears and let their anguish nourish my soul.

@insomniac7809 said in Alternate Universes, OR, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fanfic:

If we're really getting into classical crossover fanfic, though, we have to talk about Jason and the Argonauts.

"Every culture hero from the Greek city-states team up and have an adventure."

Now I just imagine the classical version of AO3, but instead of leaving comments people cluster around the Jason fanfic author to shout that the author is clearly getting this characterization wrong, because Hercules is totally not with Hylas and wouldn't leave the quest for him, because Hercules/Iolaus OTP, no Hercules/Megara OTP, are you kidding that relationship was so unhealthy, etc. And then one person starts screaming "UPDATE PLS!"

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

I'm high fiving myself right now about as much as I did as the time a guy said that voltage was running high by about 4 watts and I told him he's gotta turn down 4 wat.

...I want to borrow this one to share in the electrical engineering lab here at work.

@Wizz said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

It also ties into a fantasy trope that has ALWAYS bothered me, that fantasy cultures are usually super-simplified in much the same way -- ie, dwarves are all miners and heavy alcoholics , elves are almost always archers and scouts and live in forest communes, etc. It's become shorthand because it's recognizable and writers are desperate for shortcuts sometimes, but isn't that problematic for most of the same reasons it's problematic in real life?

I feel like genre fiction often seems to use race (in a "species" sense, like elves/dwarves/whatever, or alien races) as a shorthand for cultural background, and it annoys me greatly from a number of narrative and worldbuilding standpoints. Doubly so since the 'cultures' are often way more homogeneous than real cultures are. And I sometimes can't help but wonder if that also sets a precedent in pop culture that "all X (who are Something Different) are Y" that unconsciously reinforces real-world prejudices for some people, by giving them a world where absolutes can demonstrably be true (and the places where it isn't are the one dwarf who's written to be 'different' or whatever, i.e. the exception that proves the rule). Which is something that's never the case in the real world.

Then again, human brains are often weird and wildly divergent; something that one person views as harmless can reinforce another person's toxic views, because two human brains can take the same pattern and set of facts and draw two wildly different conclusions from it. When it's about objective things it's easy to say one person's wrong, but when it's subjective—especially about someone's personal emotional response to a thing—you can't really say that either is wrong, because neither's an invalid way to feel.

Which unfortunately means all of this—all of it—is really complicated, and no one is going to ever completely solve this sort of stuff because everyone views things differently, and something one affected person thinks is a good step forward and wholeheartedly encourages might have another person of near-identical background feeling offended.

I personally figure "being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see things from a different viewpoint" is not just a useful skill in writing various characters in a book, novel, or in an online game, but more importantly also sort of key to actual honest-to-god empathy for our fellow human beings, even when our situations differ. And empathy—real empathy—is something which my Quaker upbringing leaves me firmly convinced is something we seriously need more of, especially in today's world.

But all we can do is try to be better as we go forward day-by-day, and recognize that absolutely no approach—to any part of these sort of challenges—will please everyone. Not even everyone of the same culture and background.

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

@Auspice I went FWC because it got me the most time around Shohreh Aghdashloo's voice acting.

Her voice is magical.

I have been reading The Expanse since around the time the second book came out. All the characters had unique voices in my head as I read, including Chrisjen Avasarala.

And after the TV adaptation started, when the next book came out and I started reading? I just heard Shohreh Aghdashloo instead. I literally cannot even remember what voice I used to mentally hear for Avasarala; it has been completely supplanted and I can envision no other. That did not happen with any other character.

Her voice is just sooooo good.

@Apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Tinuviel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Kanye-Qwest Nah. She types better than Apostate.

i dno't know waht you're tlaking abuot.

See, I would've said "I kan typ gud" there. Totally different people!

@silverfox — best of all, the meme that got the song stuck in your head is itself the best response to complaining about getting the song stuck in your head.

I log everything, at least for my own use. Because 11 months later I'm like, "Wait, who told me about that thing ICly?" and I go back and look in logs.

But also because I've had fun going back 7 years later and re-reading a great scene with friends from that long ago. Nostalgia!

@Ghost said in Game of Thrones:

there isn't a pizza that he doesn't like.

Having helped take GRRM out for Thai food after a book signing 14 years and two books ago, I can confirm firsthand that the same is true for crab rangoon. He was a really great guy to talk to, but from a "I hope to see you live a long and healthy life" standpoint I was a little concerned to witness that he ate like my great-uncle Tommy (who had experienced about three heart attacks by that point).

Though at that dinner, GRRM mentioned that HBO had just optioned the books but that he doubted they'd ever actually put a series into production because of how many seasons it would take and how much it would cost to do right.

Looking back at that conversation now, I laugh.

@Aria said in Game of Thrones:

Ohh, god, do not get me started on Melanie Rawn. I've been waiting for that book since I was 13. I'm going to be 35 in, like, two weeks.

I know about five years ago she posted online that she'd write The Captal's Tower after she finished the fifth Glass Thorns book. Which she did in 2017. So I'm crossing my fingers that we might get a conclusion to Exiles in the next couple of years...

But yes. I am in the same boat as you. As I said, 22 years. So far, the biggest gap in the ASoIaF books has been 8 years (between the last book and now). When people complain about how long they've been waiting for GRRM to finish The Winds of Winter I want to go, "Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of waiting? Waiting is for the Exiles fans, who watch the author craft three series before finishing the trilogy. Waiting is for the long gap, when readers are born and live and die all before the third book is released..."

@Aria said in Game of Thrones:

I love her work. Love. I would, as I have posted in other threads, play the shit out of a Sunrunner's MU*.

I would also play the shit out of a Sunrunners game. I was, at one point, tempted to build a Sunrunners MU*, until I realized there were probably about five people in the entire MU*ing community who would actually play there.

@faraday said in Logging your activity:

@SG said in Logging your activity:

Logging for PrPs to get your xp is cool, or if there's an issue of harassment and you need proof, but the obsessive need to ICly get everything exactly correct is annoying to me.

Like anything, it can be taken to extremes of stupidity. But your character actually experienced this event. I would argue that their ability to remember something that happened to them six months later is infinitely greater than the player's ability. Having logs to jog your memory is helpful.

This.

I don't want to play eidetic memory (unless that's an actual defining trait of the character). But my character for whom this is their life will probably remember who told them about that interdimensional portal that appeared in a greenhouse six months ago, or which person told them the archdemon's true name was Steve.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the player does not live that life, and so will have things like RF attenuation test results, firmware build process, RL family things, and such cluttering up her brain where the character does not.

FINALLY got the X-ray results and doctor's assessment after I posted my annoyance; no sign of fracture or dislocation, huzzah! Though apparently I do have a lot of little calcium nodules spread throughout my foot, which I've decided is a thing for future-me to handle at some other time which is not now.

Anyway, based on the X-ray results and the pre-x-ray exam, it's likely I have a whooooole lot of fairly major deep tissue damage around the ankle and joints, but no damage to bones.

So, yay, no cast! Boo, probably-taking-many-weeks-to-heal and still being ridiculously painful...

As someone who has had the misfortune to use Invision Board/Mediawiki integration tools, that's a ball of pain I never want to experience again. If one of the arguments is "setting up PennMUSH or MUX2 is too hard", then I think forcing someone to deal with that enormous ball of Nope is not going to improve the situation.

Further, you'd really need the database to be shared, or else when someone gives up a feature character you have to go and rename the forum account, etc. And when someone gets banned—and this is MU*ing, sooner or later someone will get banned—you have to ban them from the main site, from the wiki, from the forums, from the ticket system, from the Slack or Discord you're using in lieu of comsys...

If we want a smooth, easily-maintained, easily-configured system, having it all self-contained is better. Having it as a thing that's pre-hosted so you can go 'click' and make a game—like people setting up a new site on Wikia, for instance—would be best of all.

@bored said in Mutant Genesis (X-Men):

Oh, I guess you could be Jubilee! Hooray!

As someone who has played Jubilee more than once before, I have to just chime in with an obligatory, "Why does everyone say my name like it means 'shut up'?"

@Catsmeow said in Where's your RP at?:

I would love a post-apoc game, but I also admit that I'm not fond of character death. It's more because I get excited to form the character. Then I'm excited to see how it works. If It was literally a rocks fall, your char dies - I would be less inclined to do that.

See, I think a post-apocalyptic game works best if you make it invite only and keep it to maybe 15-20 people at most, ideally folks who already know each other and won't be jackasses to each other, with a semi-active GM team to run world events.

Basically, run things more like a tabletop campaign ("Here is your party. Here is your world. Attempt to make the former survive the latter."), rather than a traditional 'Come on in, make your character, go nuts' game.

Of course, that's a huge chunk of work to make happen right.

I haven't had a chance to really dig in yet, but every scene I've had—even the one where I completely blew my piloting quals—has been enjoyable so far. Everyone has been welcoming and fairly understanding as I try to catch up and settle in, despite having joined right as my RL work is exploding a little bit.

And I really do like Ares as a server in a lot of ways.