Best posts made by Sunny

@Darren

Or they just can't afford the essentials, hard stop.

Oh also.

Don't get caught up in an argument about whether or not you should be made uncomfortable by that behavior. That is tactic #1 for boundary violating assholes everywhere, arguing with you about your right to set that boundary in the first place.

KISS, every time. Keep it simple, stupid.

'I do not like that. Please stop.'

'But... <insert thing here>'

'I understand. I do not like it. Please stop.'

If you give them more than that, then they get something to twist and argue. If you keep it polite, direct, and simple, there's nothing to latch on about, there's nothing to FIGHT about.

'I do not like that. Please stop.'

'Why?'

'Why does not matter. I want you to stop.'

I just got the best performance eval at work that I have ever had in my life. I did not realize how such a thing would make me feel. I am so, so blessed to be able to do work professionally that I'm good at.

This isn't as hard as the word-twisting, hyperbole-spewing folks want it to be.

Sex and romance are a valid type of story content.

If a storyteller is otherwise ethical and includes these elements in their plots, there are no problems with it.

If someone objects to an ethical staffer including a sexual element in their plot because it is a sexual element (or romance, or mini-golf) and behaves in a petty, jealous fashion over it, and leaves my game, that's fine. They don't want to be on a game with sexual elements included in storylines, and I don't want someone who is going to react to sex with petty jealousy on my game. Thus, winning.

The problems with sex and romance that are being used to object to sex and romance in plotlines are not actually problems with sex or romance. They are problems with unethical staffers behaving unethically. That sex is the topic is irrelevant.

It's fine to prefer that sex and romance elements (or mini-golf) not appear in plots. However, it IS a preference, not an absolute, and presenting it like people using sex and romance in their plots are unethical or bad for using them? Nah.

I'm tired of the death. I've been steeped in it for two years, being part of a small community with a lot of health challenges. We haven't gotten back to the devastation of last summer (it seemed like there was a funeral every week; we had to stop closing for them), but it's just...bad, still. Today's loss hit really, really hard.

My community has a long history of being very distrustful of power, so I can't really....I can't blame anybody there for not being vaccinated. The tribe is TRYING to encourage it, but when you have people in their remembered history -- some of it during some of these folks' LIVES, like, CURRENT history for them -- who WERE killed by "medical intervention" that wasn't, I'd be wary too, and so it's really rough to see the whole "they should be left to suffer" thing. The fear some of these communities have is valid and real and comes from what the US government did to them within the last hundred years. This isn't shit they learned in a textbook, but in their very real lives.

I just want people to stop dying. I want to make it through more than a week or two without being asked if I'm sitting down, or stumbling across info unexpectedly, or a closure for a funeral, or--

just. that's all. It's so hard.

I am actually really skeeved that TSing someone is being equated out to having an actual sexual relationship with them.

Very clear rules for both runners and those participating is my top need.

What is or is not PRP-acceptable?
What are my limits?
What power level am I allowed to use for NPCs?
What do I have to submit for approval?
Do I even NEED approval, or can I grab four buddies and hit a PRP room?
What do I do if somebody is disruptive?
What do I do if someone is mean?
When can I kick somebody out of my prp, and what do I have to do OOCly if I do that?

Not all encompassing, but having these SORTS of things defined -- having a framework and clear expectations -- makes it FAR easier to run plots. There is nothing better you can do than providing clarity. Other things are also useful, but this makes the largest impact.

I don't think this conversation is particularly healthy for anyone involved.

ALSO

blinky blinky flashy flashy is super important to remind me I'm RPing.

@arkandel said in The Desired Experience:

@sunny At that point the Prince (or whoever) should probably not be a regular PC. Make the bit staff-only - a glorified NPC.

Then the issue is solved since when a scene is warranted the character is available. The drawback is making sure staff keep track of what they are doing with that bit to make sure they don't contradict each other when the staff member behind the Prince changes.

I mean yes, but that's an entirely different conversation. The point is that the bottleneck is the problem, and the expectation that the leader PCs have to be available for your trivial bullshit is the problem. You shouldn't need the prince (sheriff, deputy, count, baron) to advance your story, and if your story can't advance because you can't get access to <insert key character here> then that is a design failure, not a failure of <insert key character here>. Whether they're a leader PC or not.

The reason you (general) can't get and keep a good Great Pumpkin player long term is that you make them far, far, far, far, far too responsible for the fun of other people, and there's a community problem with expectations and availability (see: geek social fallacies).

Think of all of the reasons you come up with as to why the Great Pumpkin has to be accessible to more than four people.

Now, think of other ways to address those problems, that don't involve making the Great Pumpkin do things that they're not really into doing, don't make them log in on their vacation, remove their ability to take a break.

NOW, you have begun to address this issue with game design, rather than foisting it off to something that will, 100%, lead to the burnout of the very players you want to keep.

It's completely possible to address this as staff instead of passing the buck, but many mushes absolutely refuse to do this and instead go 'well if they want the benefits of playing one of these characters, they have to deal with the responsibilities, too'.

News flash: if you think playing a leader PC is more benefit than it is a headache for any halfway reasonable, responsible player who is capable of doing a good job? You're dead wrong. The mythical "but you get so much RP! people beat down your door!" seems to completely forget that what you get is twelve peoples' worth of TRANSACTIONAL RP (where they are getting something from you), and it uses up every shred of the time you had, leaving NOTHING for non-transactional RP, let alone PERSONAL RP (do that too much, and people start bitching about your sandwiches).

We have learned on MANY occasions that making rules that punish the GOOD PLAYERS because of the actions of a small minority is a really bad idea. Yet, this is the same thing.

You are burning out or making ineligible the very people who you MOST want to have in these jobs, because they have lives, families, jobs, and things going on in their life that aren't the game. The people who can literally spend 24/7 on the mush are almost always (not always, but almost!) the people that YOU DO NOT WANT in these roles. You want people who take a measured approach OOC, are patient, and have a healthy perspective on just how important pretendy fun time is (see: both vital, and absolutely useless, at the same time).

They don't take the game too seriously. <--- this is key. If you're spending the bulk of your hobby/free time with a mush, with a specific game -- if this is your only outlet for the RPz or your only hobby, you are by the nature of brains going to take it REALLY seriously, and little problems (if you can't explain whatever it is over coffee with a non-RPing friend, it's a little problem) become HUGE.

But stringent activity requirements and rules about leader PCs interacting with the people they're responsible for...self-select AWAY from people who don't take the game seriously.

No. Bad. So bad. Consider everything awful about our hobby and then crank the dial to ten because now you have real money and paying customers involved.

I have commented emphatically that I was on my way out; given this discussion and the changes I have observed, even though there really isn't a final answer laying around or anything...I am happy with the direction things are going, and I'm going to stick it out. Thanks for the hope that things can (and are going to) get better.

My heart is broken. I am going to miss him more than I have words for. It's not fair. I hate it. He has been my partner in crime for so long in this hobby that I don't even know what to do. I mentioned somewhere the other day the two people who had saved my life; he was one of them. He was a good soul whose absence is going to be felt forever. Stupid death.

There is a TON of stuff you can do in Star Wars without Features being on-screen characters at all. I've run many a Star Wars tabletop that was LOTS of fun without any of the major players making an appearance.

When you get spit on for the 80th time just because that 80th person had to get their hit on you, too...it gets to be a little much. Nobody thinks about the fun of the target when they use systems like that, at all. It was used as a way to get an easy cheap shot, and I was really happy to see them go. It wasn't a case of people being thin skinned, it was a scale issue.

We do adopt a kiddo for Christmas here at work. I requested an age/gender combo that she has a hard time finding people for, and we ended up with an older boy. An older gaming boy. My team is excited about it. EXCITED. Last year they participated sort of because-it-was-there, but this year they are actively enthused and have all sorts of ideas and everything. He's gonna get a good Christmas.

1. If it makes you uncomfortable, you have the right to ask it to stop.

It does not matter if it's "all in your head", or you being fussy. If it makes you uncomfortable, then it's okay to set boundaries.

'Please don't do that, I don't like it.'

Normal people who do not have behavioral issues will generally respond to this sort of thing in a healthy fashion; they might get hurt feelings, but it absolutely will not be the end of the world or a dramatastic explosion.

If you get the dramatastic explosion, or you get someone yelling at you for being stuffy, or stuck up, or picky, then they are trying to use guilt to manipulate you. It is literally part of the con, to get past those boundaries -- having a fit is part of the 'over the line behavior' in the first place.

If you're not sure that what they're doing is over the line or not, then either ask a trusted friend for their opinion, or just tell staff on the game that you're not sure and need a sanity check, but honestly, it really DOES get to be a litmus of 'is this making me uncomfortable' and if the answer is 'yes' it doesn't MATTER if you're just being picky or fussy.

You need to tell them to stop. Politely. 'I do not like X, please stop doing it to me.'

It doesn't have to be more than that. If they react to that badly, that is on THEM, not on you, and dealing with that fallout is where you are going to have to (painfully) grow as a person, unfortunately. Because typically people who are used to violating boundaries are VERY likely to throw an everloving tantrum when you start making them stop.

We have a diagnosis on what's going on for me. It isn't 100% for sure, we have tests to do, but the symptoms match and make sense in context. If this is the case, there is treatment. I will get better.

Getting to do the thing that my character is built for. I am pretty much over the moon happy about it.

One of the ferals. He's about 15 feet away here and at this point has stopped caring as long as we're not walking towards him. Waiting for his treats.