Best posts made by surreality

I will, probably, pull this up to continue private tinkering at some point.

I agree with @Three-Eyed-Crow's point, re: 'timing'. I figured that being clear I was asking specific questions and intent on focusing only on those specific questions would be clear enough in the constructive section of the forum, because a silly writeup that is deliberately campy is not what I consider any sort of real preview or pitch. I figured that was clear; that it was clear to most folks is honestly good enough.

I am not and have never been interested in crowdsourcing a game on a forum. As it says in the first post, I have no interest in the cavalcade of gloom-and-doom predictions that people flail over with wild hyperbole, or the laundry list of "it's gotta have"s that people pile on any time there's even a suggestion of a new game potentially existing. I am not Santa Claus, and I have zero interest in that job.

@bored can sling all the shit and make all the accusations (s)he likes; (s)he's on ignore and will stay there. The last laundry list wasn't even worth responding to as it is, and the folks who have pointed out that it was not a good idea to respond to the hand-wringing about worst case scenarios were right, and it pulled things further off course. @Ganymede's quote from else-thread puts a great deal into perspective on this front. And, no, I still don't think (s)he was deliberately being an asshat here in order to promote another game.

If there's something similar to the questions above, I'll just throw together a poll to aid in specificity, but that's still quite unlikely. It would clutter up the forum with polls, which strikes me as being super attention-whore-ish, and is exactly what I was trying to avoid doing with a catchall thread instead for specific and typically easy questions over a broad span of topics.

For the small handful of folks who did get an actual preview... those links won't work any longer. I'll be maintaining that domain name if I decide to stick with it, and when things are ready for review, it will work again. (And no, I'm not just going to stick it under my surreality.wtf random projects domain like I have done with other dev projects, no matter how appropriate that might actually be in this instance. Yes, I actually bought that for precisely that sort of thing, and as a place to house the generic droplet some day.)

Ultimately: things are pretty bleak right now, y'all. Not because of this -- the amount of work put in may be non-trivial but the project itself is fairly trivial -- but due to a lot of real world things going on that, well, whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses are, that about sums it up. If anything, this thread has proven there are definitely outlooks considerably more bleak and fatalistic than mine at the moment, so maybe things aren't quite so bad as they seem.

Re: This forum: This forum? Is fine. People who forget it isn't WORA, well, that's on them. Me included, when I let myself get sucked into it.

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

UPDATE: Someone stole my catalytic converter. Cut it right out of the exhaust system. In the middle of the night. In my garage bay. Next to two much more expensive cars.

<just stares>

...I was just thinking about a thread like this for kudos for specific people, so much your way for this one, and I may be brave enough to do that later.

Reno1: Making a rule that said, in straightforward language, "Do not make staff care about your TS." This required a change to the way weresphere had been handled in 1e compared to 2e and was guesswork, but frankly, "Do not make staff care about your TS" is a rule I would really like to see propagate. I commend this rule heartily as it was very much a discouragement to starting drama on this subject, and that is very, very much worth all the internet hearts ever.

Shangrila: +kinks is a brilliant idea. Forget the content, because one could fill in whatever content they wanted into the code framework, and focus on the purpose. Giving people tools to help find exactly what they're looking for, and avoid the things that make them uncomfortable, entirely on their own, is genuinely helpful.

Also, women store heat in the body core. Men in the extremities. (Blame evolutionary adaptation if you must.)

Our extremities are typically where the sensory organs live.

@Arkandel This is what temprooms are for. Seriously. And if the game may be potentially set up to be mostly temproom-based anyway, it's not a huge difference.

I dunno how long it's been since you've appstaffed, basically, but, er. There are some winners. It's been a while since I've been appstaff anywhere, and while I'm 100% down with temproom soft RP, there's too much crazy out there to not give things a passing look-over before they are approved for play.

For one thing, this trusts implicitly that no one will make one of those banned concepts anyway and drop it onto the grid, thinking they have the best reasoning ever and they're sure to be an exception. See the 4chan troll and his insistence on that in a variety of ways -- this is sadly not at all uncommon; there are people who app as elders and just assume they'll be handed a giant extra pile of XP for nothing because they're old and would be playing accordingly; I've had people come to me asking 'hey, can I play a Strix?' and stuff there aren't even PC templates for. Someone asked if they could play a cat. Not a werecat, not someone with a spirit cat, just a cat. Meow. Some of this stuff is harmless, but some of it is pretty breaky, and even things that'd pass with minor tweaks could end up requiring some major retcons (which are a pain for all involved). People are accustomed to that with the kind of off-grid softRP that almost every game I know of permits, but if something is on grid, generally it's assumed it's approved, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to lose that delineation entirely.

When you know you caught the plague your husband brought home by the weird inverse sensation of your ears popping.

@Seraphim73 There are actually some things to do just that, or that have the potential to do so. This is a bit of a sidenote but it's one I think is worth mention.

Some folks are 'call me when it's time to go bust heads' folks, or 'call me when it's time for the political meeting' folks, and that's fine. That's the crowd that needs the structured events a little more, since that's what they're looking for.

Me? All RP has value, so far as I'm concerned. This includes making use of downtime for RP, rather than just idling in rooms to chat on channels or seeking boredom TS. (Boredom TS is fine, too, obviously, if it's somebody's choice rather than 'there's nothing else to do, may as well, I guess'.)

I do not believe in considering downtime between formally organized PrPs, plots, or even pickup GM'd scenes to be 'lesser'. A lot of times, this is where people find a great deal of organic back and forth (...with or without the boredom TS... <rimshot>) that helps people develop their characters, get into their heads, and let the "reality" of events in the game world sink in. This includes scenes like dressing wounds after a battle, discussing how some things worked and others didn't in IC terms, going off drinking to celebrate a particular victory, reuniting with a long-lost family member that finally arrived in the area, and so on -- all of these scenes can have a major impact on the characters involved.

Some folks have no interest in scenes like this, and that's OK. Other folks practically live for scenes like this and enjoy them considerably more than the bouts of cinematic action, and that's OK, too.

Most games don't place much, if any, value on scenes in that second category at all, and base everything on how much someone is or isn't risking under the eye of a GM. Risk is definitely a factor -- but it's a factor, it shouldn't be the only factor that matters.

What matters should be: does this add something to the story of the game somehow?

So there are a number of incentives designed to kick in whenever someone submits a log; the form to submit the logs to the wiki has stuff to handle this (or will; if I can do it for CoD I can do it for this much more easily). XP for downtime scenes is a thing if they qualify for those incentives. It gives people a reason to do something in that downtime other than just chatter OOC or 'oh, well, may as well just write something sticky'.

The incentives are focused on things that are value-adds to the game in some fashion; there are additional ones for risk and events and such but these apply to absolutely any log posted•:

• The log applies to one or more game themes (checkboxes for which apply; these will be linked on that theme's info page so people can see what is going on in game related to that theme in play and how people are interpreting it)
• The log discusses events from an ongoing plot or recent PrP (add the name for either in an autofill box; it will link up that log to the plot or PrP page so people can see the ripples of the event/plot/etc. are spreading; the GM for the plot or PrP also gets a minor XP kickback for this, because not only did they create a scene, they created something that gave people something to RP about even beyond the confines of that scene; this also encourages side plots to grow from out of these logs)
• Discussion/investigation/exploration of/references to the lore/urban legends
• Is using public gridspace/hangout locations

There are a few more, though I'd need to double-check the list for the specifics (and the insomnia is winning on the clarity factor). There will also be things like a weekly legend or a monthly theme that gets an extra smidgen of a bonus, usually in the run up to something being planned around that theme. (And it's fine for players to request these if they're planning a public PrP around either or both, because then everyone involves wins, which... everybody involved wins, not seeing a downside here. )

• Yes, including NSFW content, if for some reason people want to post that. There are NSFW censor things people can use for this similar to the wiki spoiler template I posted a ways back in one of the help forums. There are a few common sense exceptions to this: no rape on the wiki, no child sex on the game period so obviously it should never be in a log, etc.

@Ghost This is also me and my husband. We can't normally sleep at the same times and this is one of the reasons.

Though in his case he will smack it himself. Or just let the alarm blare away for another 20 minutes.

I often work through the night, he has days he has to get up in the morning, so he needs to get up around when I need to sleep. Normally, there's minimal overlap. Normally.

The rare times we have been trying to sleep at the same time, things like the following are heard:

• "No, really, there are knives stashed on this side of the bed, too."
• "Tess, Daddy's face is made of tuna." (This is the only English flurfcat understands. SNURFLE SNURFLE SNURFLE.)
• "IF THAT BEEPS ONE MORE TIME-" (I never get to the threat. Apparently the tone is enough that it doesn't beep again. This is good because I'm usually too addled to come up with one.)

@Arkandel Jesus, that. All the fuck that.

I have a 'don't break the toys without permission' general standard that applies to major named NPCs flagged 'no killing off without asking plz', and things like 'do not have a major national power invade and overrun the island without consulting staff plz' -- but this is like that common sense 'don't set off a nuke on the grid and atomize everyone and everyone's everything' rule. (The named NPCs thing is because that's a toy in the box everybody's supposed to be able to share, and it sucks when somebody just goes around breaking all the toys in the room.)

You want an island whale to lurk nearby and get smote or try to hump the lighthouse? Have at. Legion of nightmare fuel looming up from the deep to kidnap random townsfolk to turn into appetizers? Go for it.

Some stuff, yes, people will have to ask. "I'm in the Spanish Armada faction so I decided to have Spain take over the island because whynot, there's a flag and everything!" isn't going to fly without cause. (See Black Sails for quite a few examples of cause, though.)

@Ghost said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Cupcake Yeaaaah. Dudes are weird. For some it's always either flirtation, pissing on territory, or both.

The problem I'm dealing with involves a married guy telling one of my female friends with ridiculously low self esteem that he'd sleep with her if she was desperate, but he's not because he doesn't find her attractive...but would totally throw her a bone.

I wish that in certain cases beating someone up wasn't so illegal.

ETA: Oh, and then the guy proceeded to tell her how fascinating she is and comment on how x and y parts of her body are really cute.

So. Predatory.

I am very much a 'smile like I sucked a lemon and hate the person and then find a reason to leave the conversation' sort of person in most cases similar to this.

Then there's that rare motherfucker that flips the switch in my brain from 'I cringe from social conflict' to 'anyone present will be cringing every time they look at this poor asshole after whatever the hell comes out of my mouth'.

It's only happened a few times in my whole damn life, but that? Holy shit would that have been one of them.

@Ghost I actually figure that if people post those they'll likely, uh, just summarize those bits or ftb that out and fade back in for content but I made the NSFW tag thing just in case.

It is literally:

{{NSFW|<block of text goes here>}} <-- and then it turns into a little collapsible section that's hidden by default with a 'NSFW content under here' sort of thing.

...if people feel like putting it up there. (I may still just reflexively siteban anybody who doesn't edit that shit if it's all written in second person, though, 'cause nnnngh. THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF LOG ENTRY WE WANT HERE NOOOO. Ahem.)

But yeah, that's kinda the thing. It's a means of giving people something to do other than just OOC chat or randomly hook up between events, mostly, and make it count and matter. Encourages people to run things that give people some IC 'homework' in some ways as well, past the scene itself. Adds to the world.

It's sort of a carrot toward the 'teach a bunch of typists to fish' vs. 'give a bunch of typists a fish' approach. The game needs both but I don't see enough encouragement of the former and that's something I want to work on. Sometimes, really neat things evolve out of what begins as a casual scene that lead to very intense plot-story-etc. People just have to get out there and do stuff a little to even give that a chance to occur organically. Incentivizing 'get your butts on grid and do stuff!' will hopefully help enable that.

@Cobaltasaurus That... really did live up to both 'lava' and 'crunch' at least, just... in the worst way possible. I am so sorry.

@kitteh Not yet, and I'm not especially inclined toward it.

There may be one, but to set up the XP stuff, people would have to fill out the form and check off the relevant stuff for their scene anyway. We are not reading everyone's logs and filling it out for them after the fact; that is something people have to do for themselves, so there's some honor system here, but we're not taking on the workload of reading every log submitted to the game to check them over to see if they fit stuff. It should be as easy as cut and paste into the template like a lot of games use for submitted logs, with a few extra checkboxes that will do all the math and calculate stuff for everyone to make things easier on everybody. (Less math, always win.

We may be able to set up a logger, but I think it may not be feasible with the setup unless an SQL genius is handy to tinker something up to work with the proper templates.

@Roz I don't think it's weird if people post it, which is why I proactively am saying: yeah, people are absolutely permitted to post this if they want and nobody's allowed to give them shit for it. I haven't seen it as something common on any game I've played on, though, which is why it seemed like it needed saying, since it's specifically addressing all the various downtime stuff folks do.

Most of what I've seen tagged NSFW is someone stripping at a bar in the background, someone snorting cocaine off of someone's breast or backside, or a mention of prostitution or something with a FTB other than the two examples cited. Considering some of the inspiration material? You pretty much can't get through an episode of Black Sails without an NC17 incident or two that goes well beyond what I've seen as the MUX posted log norm, and I'd actually strongly recommend Harlots on hulu for a glimpse at the inner workings of brothels around that time in much more civilized areas by contrast, which goes even further. Maybe this is TMI, but I certainly haven't seen anything remotely as explicit as the kind of things I've written ever show up on a wiki, either. That's not to say it hasn't, it's just that if it has, it's not on a game I've played on or have been reading logs from.

When I finally chill out enough and squelch enough of the anxiety to try to catch some sleep...

...and my darling husband just has to chime in with extended bitching about something stupid and petty and could have waited until later if it was worth mention at all right before I try to sleep.

Which of course means I'm anxious as fuck again, and can't sleep.

@Rook said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

Clearly they have had some idiots -cause- them to have to have this length of policy, damn.

Despite the dearly loved 'don't make us care about your TS' files and policies on Reno1, there were some people on the game, including some staff, who could not for the life of them leave the subject alone... ever.

As in, that is a warning to staff, too, that nosing into these things is absolutely not in any way OK.

(All of my writing about everything is pretty wordy. At some point in beta I will probably hand out cookies to folks for helping trim things down to something more concise where possible.)

@Aria I know, right?! I mean. That chart is weirdly... accurate in more ways than one.

@Arkandel Posted events and such will have options for people to note any potential content the GM thinks may be problematic.

There are some things, not even going to pretend otherwise, that absolutely exist in the world but will not be permitted to be the concept for a PC. Arx seems to have kinda done this with prostitution somewhat, re: yes this could feasibly exist but we don't want PCs built around this concept. That's legit, to me.

That's essentially the tack I'm looking at re: slavery as an option, and 'human beings as a territory based commodity to harvest' is right out, full stop.

Similarly, it was absolutely not at all uncommon for young girls under ten (or younger) to be sold to brothels and not for training until they hit 18, either, but while PCs will likely be 16+, prostitutes may end up 18+ only, including any NPCs on screen. There are legality issues for some players in certain places about this. The US, where we're hosted, isn't as freaked out about it as some places, but Australia, for instance... just walking past someone posing something could cause major issues.

@Rook There's a complete preference setup on the wiki for this. Concept shamelessly stolen from Shang, it's just general game subject matter, not specific sexual preference things. (There are some general ones on the list, but it's folded into the sum including things like generic gore tolerances and how much you love/hate social scenes/etc.) Can look at a person's preferences from their page and see what they are, and are not, comfortable with and/or interested in. Can click on a preference and see who is interested in that thing, which is useful for GMs, since it can give them an indication of the kinds of stories currently active players are, or are not, interested in. If nobody on the game is into ghosts, maybe run something else, for instance. That one's been done for a year or so now, it just hasn't gone live anywhere yet since I wasn't going to drop it on BITN.

@Ganymede I will definitely take a look at it, and toss you whatever notes I end up with.

Not like I have a single dime to donate to anything lately, but ideally if I did? Not sure, ideally both. Neither because of tears shed because churches are burning, and each for very different reasons. There's really zero comparison beyond the surface here.

@Arkandel said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

I'm not sure what solutions exist here and how many provisions games in general ought to offer their players to protect them from seeing things that trigger their particular sensibilities.

I'm going to be super clear on this and while I do not intend to be harsh, it may come across that way.

The statistics on rape in the US alone are fucking horrifying. I, personally, am a survivor of violent rape. My PTSD gives precisely zero fucks about how deeply integral to their master story plan someone thinks surprising everyone with rape is.

RL is more important than RP, and if somebody cannot respect their fellow players enough to provide minor information to allow them to make informed choices about the content they're going to engage with if it's reasonable to believe it could be problematic, that somebody needs to grow up more than a little. This does not apply to just rape, either. If you're including torture, gore, feeding babies to Zuul, etc., advise the players in the space provided for an advisory notice and allow them to decide how much they want to stretch their comfort zones by choosing to participate or not.

@skew did a great job of this on BITN, with warnings that 'X will occur and will happen to a random person at this event, if you're not down with that, do not come' and similar. (Seriously, he deserves kudos for this.)

(Generic) your surprise plot twist is not worth somebody's emotional well-being or therapy bill, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

People will have prefs set. People should use them to note things they have issues with; it's hard to justify complaining about how somebody tripped on a well-buried and unexpected landmine if you don't put up a sign that says: yo, there are landmines in this field, tread with caution, please. GMs should, ideally, glance over that info and tap people on the shoulder if they spot something that might be an issue via page before kicking something off to give the player a chance to opt out.

We've had this discussion before, and I grok your stance on it, @Arkandel. It is a fascinating philosophical argument to have; it's also completely irrelevant when compared to the practical truth that human beings are more important than any 'surprise plot twist' somebody has in mind on a pretendy fun time game. That reality is where policy needs to come from, because that's the reality where we, the players, actually have to live our real lives, sometimes dealing with some very real and very ugly things we would rather not have to think about in the time we want to spend relaxing, having fun, and enjoying telling stories together.

Y'all are very much appreciated. Just peeking in and out, but thank you.

I'm firm on 'if brain is in a bad place, stay off games' and try to contain drama here if it occurs vs. letting it happen on games. If people simply must be terrible for whatever reason, better they do it here, pretty much. In more crass terms, 'never shit where you eat'.

But, really... it's better to just not deal with drama period at the moment. There's enough shit on the plate as it is.