Posts made by Sunny

@faraday said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

We are not a huge community to begin with.

I understand and acknowledge your perspective and your lived experience as being different from mine. Please understand that mine is actually different than yours. In my own personal, anecdotal experience, there are thousands of people actually playing these games, and people regularly underestimate how big the population is by a huge amount. If you spend ten minutes on the mudconnector forums, you will see a way bigger population. Yes, many of them are mud/RPI players, but mushers actually are in there too, mixed in with the rest of them. Have you ever checked out the reddit subthreads relating to the hobby? There's a ton of people, and very few of them are here.

Mushes aimed at the MSB/WORA/whatever audience are of course going to be full of MSB players? Games advertised here are of course going to have players from here. If you're not aware of the other communities and not advertising to them / trying to pull their players in? Of course it's going to be the same names you're familiar with seeing.

@Ganymede

I mean, as a storyteller, if you're running a plot and literally no one is picking up what you're running with and there's no progress, sure, you can just continue the plot on to its conclusion and kill everyone...

Or you can come up with a new plot and ditch that one because obviously people aren't having fun with it.

ETA: This is not about the consequences of failure (I believe in them) or just letting people succeed. This is about knowing your audience, and not punishing people for not engaging with something they aren't interested in. Just because you CAN force it as a storyteller doesn't mean you should. If you can't get any bites on your story, then that's a you problem (general you), not your players.

If you get some but not many bites, then shift the scope, adapt, and run it for the people that are interested. It is completely possible to run a game and have major global sweeping plotlines happen without forcing an individual to directly engage in it via consequence.

@Ganymede said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

One day, I'll probably go to Arx, but I don't think I can handle a game like that right now.

I'll be here when you're ready.

@faraday said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Arkandel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

We don't dictate anything or claim to speak on behalf of anyone (let alone everyone) else.

The kind of influence I'm talking about is different though. This place brings MUSHers together outside of the games we play. It's where we discuss cross-game ideas and issues, share news about games and code and stuff, and just generally chit-chat about everything from knitting to Game of Thrones.

It's the MUSH Community Center.

That necessarily has an influence on peoples' perceptions, in one way or another. Are those perceptions accurate? Not necessarily, but they can still have an impact, encouraging or discouraging.

I agree 100% that it influences the people who participate here. I am not suggesting it does not; clearly it does.

What I disagree with is that this data-set can be extrapolated to mean anything about the Bigger Community, because the Bigger Community doesn't care. Those that do know of it (but don't participate in it) often have nasty things to say about it (and often, everyone who participates here BECAUSE they participate here).

@Arkandel

Absolutely. I wasn't making my statement as a value judgment. It's not BAD, just because it's not significant to the greater community (I would argue that mudstats is probably a bigger deal). Certain people around here, if they aren't actually out and involved in things, seem to be under the mistaken impression that trends here, spats here, general behavior here has anything to do with out there.

This is a small community of mostly very jaded people, many of whom have a lot of trauma. People love to try and extrapolate -- it's a normal people thing to do -- and think that because the rate of trauma/jaded here is what it is, the greater mushing community is that way.

It's not.

@Arkandel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

Why does a forum need to be influential to be valuable?

It doesn't. Slash is an or.

It being the only show in town doesn't make it more valuable / influential.

@Scorn

I understand what you mean, but we live in a day where many of us are 40 with kids and limited time. Yep, STs waste time, it's part of being an ST. At the end of the day, ALL time in this hobby is wasted time, right? Give the hook to a player who is interested in picking up what you're putting down -- you can say 'oh, the first scene was a waste' or you can say 'yay, I get to do ANOTHER fun bit of STing with a different player who wants to be here!' I mean, perspective.

@Scorn said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

@Sunny Except.. okay, example. You and your group are standing there as the shambling hoard of zombies edges closer and closer to you. Shambleshamble.

Your friends get the f*ck outta Dodge.

You stand there. You fail to act. You get your brains nommed by shambly zombies.

Sometimes failure to act should reasonably result in consequences.

Augh, yeah, but we're talking about people electing to not get involved with plots, not a scene. Scene consequences = ok. Consequences for not getting involved in staff plots = oh hell no.

@Derp said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

Negative consequences for failures to act should be a thing too.

I'll never play a game ever again that does this. Ever. This turns playing into a chore. Nope!

@surreality

Yeah, 100% correct, I'm definitely not talking about "MSB: the Hobby", I am talking about the hobby we are talking about on the forum, which is mushing.

I'm tempted to ask the same question about MSB because I'm a (removing word for male genitalia; I typed it, so I'm calling myself out, but I did at least catch it), but I don't see a valuable conversation coming out of that. This? Yah.

Also: I RP with like, 2-3 other MSB folks on the regular. I have a "regular" roleplay circle of like 10 people I play with OFTEN, and WAY more than that that I interact with semi-regularly (a scene every week or two depending on what's going on).

The number of people who post on MSB (or even read here) are dwarfed by the number of people who do not post on MSB on one single game.

This place isn't anything beyond a discussion board. It's not a window, it's not an indication, it's not a reflection. You would have to have even a significant minority of mushers participating here for that to be true, and we don't. We are completely irrelevant as a community to the larger mushing community. Participating here matters very, very, very, very, very, very, very little (if anything) EVEN in the scope of the mushing community, let alone mattering in the real world.

Giving it any sort of weight or acting like it's any sort of canary in a coal mine is nonsense.

ETA: Seriously. MOST mushers haven't even HEARD of this place.

@Ghost said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Sunny Let's not get combative. I've mentioned that I haven't always been the best at it, myself, but am keen to be a part of an effort to fix the problem. I feel this is a group problem that needs a group solution.

And while those boards have 3.2k(etc) posts, I think my overall point stands. As cathartic as bitching and venting may be, I feel that negativity reigns and that those particular boards are a symptom of a bigger issue.

Yep, you're right. I deleted the post because it was inappropriately hostile. I do feel like you are a negative influence on this community, but I understand that you are trying to be helpful.

@Ghost said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

I think it's poignant.

Thank you for sharing your perspective with us.

@Ghost said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

Okay so my delivery was cheesy, but I think the sheer number of posts dedicated to complaining and breaking people down compared to the number of posts related to loving the hobby or working together is telling.

I think it's important to ponder it.

Enjoy pondering it. Let us know if you reach any conclusions beyond 'humans be humans and tend to complain more than they praise'.

@Tinuviel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Sunny said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Tinuviel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Sunny No. Fuck you. You're wrong about this one particular thing and therefore you are a horrible person in every way!

I love you too, dahling.

In my head, you're now Marlene Dietrich.

Sounds good.

@Tinuviel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Sunny No. Fuck you. You're wrong about this one particular thing and therefore you are a horrible person in every way!

I love you too, dahling.

I feel so much better about the poll today than I did yesterday; it still makes me a little sad, but I'm not quite so shocked as I was.

@Ghost

Nobody is on fire or being murdered over there, it's okay. We're all still getting along, we're just getting along very loudly.

I am startled. Thank you guys for answering me, especially the posts from those that did not say 'yes' to explain their answer. It's an interesting reality check and kind of scary to realize where other people are in the hobby on this.

eta: I appreciate all votes, even the yesses, but those don't surprise me