Best posts made by surreality

Many years ago, I had to cut a TS scene short because, and I quote, "I need to go for a moment, the hedges are on fire."

In my defense, they actually really were.

(Still limited ability to comment, 'cause travel/tablet/etc.)

Haven't seen this mentioned, but from what I recall -- and no, I can't look it up from here -- the book states there are some thing outside the bounds of what the system is designed to allow. I don't recall whether it provides examples or not, but I do recall at least that much.

It would be very important for any given game to define what that means on that game, and what is, or is not, an appropriate use of the system. Even the developers seem to be aware that people will try to get away with the ridiculous by mentioning this, and that STs do not have to let them even try it.

One of the aspects of agency that hasn't come up, but is something I think is relevant here, and it's directly related to the above. By default, players joining a game cede authority over many things to staff; joining a scene, they cede authority to the ST (player or staff).

The issue that people are running into on the cultural level is a bit abstract, in that it is ideally ceding authority to the system, and the system does not have the same ability to make the kind of judgment calls that the system itself relies on to function properly. It was not designed to function autonomously.

Otherwise? In PC-PC interactions, it becomes a matter of ceding authority to the aggressor's interpretation of the system -- including what is reasonable, permissible, or allowable; what mods apply, etc. -- and I think it's easy to see and understand why many players balk at that.

@TNP said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@Luna said:

What if the girl also has beer-flavored nipples?

Was that one of the options of that Shang PC? What was the name, Baskin Robbins?

Naw, that was her floozy cousin, Corona•, described as 'a little stout, but the cure for what ales you' and always wandered around in a too-tight tee that said, 'Tap This!

Come on, it would not be the dumbest thing on Shang!

•Probably not really, but somebody should do it.

@tinuviel Exactly this. It really is designed with that in mind at all times. It's why I gave up on using it for MU, or even thinking it should be, ultimately, but especially so as written, and without a fairly comprehensive explanation of the game/staff/uniform ST stance on... frankly almost every single aspect of the game.

In all seriousness, while I have shared this story in the past, it's apt to repeat, and hopefully it will further drive this point home:

Years back, I was in an oWoD online game that had a group of players who insisted that celerity applied to any action that a character could take rather than just the physical actions the creators intended, including blowing past things like willpower or blood expenditures allowed per over all turn. Well, not just no, but fuck no. So, knowing some of their folks and having a quick contact, I ask one of their developers to clarify this to end this absurdity so things can go back to the merely ridiculous, rather than the balls to the wall bullshit of things like characters slinging multiple thaumaturgy rituals and throwing in two pops of dominate with celerity in a single over all turn.

His reply, verbatim: Oh, honey. Do not play with those people.

...

Yeah. That approach works just fine for tabletop. Not so much in the come-one, come-all free-for-all of chaos that is even a small MU.

...I didn't know that one, either, but damn that's a good term to drop straight into the lexicon.

@peasoupling said in Historical settings:

Generic City, 2018, is a racist, sexist, etc, setting too.

This. This right here. I wish people would not lose sight of this.

It's not because I think modern settings need to emphasize or focus on these things.

It does, however, help create the desire for settings without it, because we do deal with these issues in daily life. We're not magically enlightened or perfect, no matter what part of the world we're in (so this is not a US-centric issue alone).

Personally, I'm more comfortable dealing with it in a historical context than in a modern setting, even if the level of it is dramatically more extreme in the historical one -- and, yes, I'm talking about it from the perspective of 'discrinated against' and not 'want to discriminate against for whatever reason'. The additional level of separation (era) lessens the immediacy of it for me; it may or may not be the same for others.

In a modern setting, it's also present. It's also much closer to home for me.

Tackling this from the perspective of 'want to play a character that overcomes the even more dramatic odds of an earlier era as a part of their story' definitely has some elements of wish-fulfillment (not intended in a negative context) and can be empowering. I think the same is possible in the realm of confronting these issues in a modern day game, but the 'hits along the way' are going to hit harder because it's impossible to not know they're just as likely to happen in our current society rather that being something that is only likely to occur within the framework of the story in that way; it's much easier to get discouraged and find more discomfort than empowerment there.

@crayon said:

What I don't much care for is debating something where I think both perspectives are equally valid, but have a personal preference one way or the other, because it doesn't really accomplish anything.

And there, in a nutshell, is your problem. That's more or less our specialty in these parts. If there is one thing this group can do, it's fine-grain shit right to death. (Dead horse beating is how we make sure our parties have a good rhythm goin' at all times.)

The reason debate's been tepid at best here is because most of the criticism has been founded on the basis of this 'Us vs. Them' mentality or a 'MUSH vs. MUD' grounding rather than on actual ideas themselves. And I don't really care to debate that because I honestly don't really care about that contention.

See, this would be a lot easier to believe if you didn't haul out what follows, because it rather proves the disingenuous nature of that remark; it goes from being 'to each their own' to 'this is beneath our lofty notice'. Observe the bolded portion as to why.

Most 'criticisms' tend to turn into a circular debate that routes right back to our site's criteria for community games, particularly the requirement for automation which I think Jeshin and I have both made a pretty lengthy effort at explaining to satisfaction. If you're adamantly against automated arbitration and decision of in-game outcomes (eg. coded combat, automated dice rolls, etc.) or you're completely against permanent death you're probably not our target audience. And that's okay, games and players of games that aren't our target audience are still perfectly valid.

Most of the games discussed here absolutely have permanent death (more, I would say, on average, than MUDs do, apparently, from the discussion here about respawns). Coded combat? Some do, most don't. Automated dice rolls? Almost every game has them; whether they're a requirement or not varies, many games do require them. (Note: the people you're arguing with coded the ones in the broadest use at the moment, so far as I know.) Some have automation for travel, for healing, hell, Firan apparently had code to tell you when you needed to pee or take a bath. If that isn't automation to the point of absurdity, I don't know what is.

This all does not appear to be sinking in, which is rather mind-boggling.

And because that's not sinking in, the fundamental assumption here becomes problematic. The fundamental assumption is your advice will apply to any game that fits the criteria you've laid out. This is more or less a failure to understand the most basic of scientific principles here; you're trying to keep the theory intact by discarding outliers by insisting they can't fit the criteria, but the basis of this discard process is predicated on the basis of: 'because if it fit our criteria, our advice would apply'.

This is a failure of logic.

I bitch endlessly about the tragic lack of self-awareness being a common thing in this particular hobby, but I suppose it's one more thing that we can be said to share across the great divide. So that's a thing? Yay?

I kinda don't know what to say, other than, uhm. Wow? I did not expect this reaction.

It is very humbling, and I hope I can do better going forward in a way that will not make the folks who have extended their understanding here regret it.

Thank you all. Wordy wench is kinda at a loss for words right about now, beyond that. Thank you.

I think @Jeshin may need a little time, y'all. He has some RL from what he mentioned here, and call me a bleeding heart if you want, but having to go through the same not so long ago... I'm still in a world of super-mope even after a couple weeks. So maybe let's not expect a speedy response there, is all.

@wizz Those are the people that were specifically owed apologies for the behavior.

The behavior was in the public eye; the apology and any lumps I take for fucking up that hard should be as well.

I was not going to contact these people privately to discuss the matter, because many of them quite rightly would not want to speak to me because of the things I have said and done over the past couple of years, regardless of the why behind it. The only appropriate course of action was to allow them to contact me about it if they were willing to talk to me, and that meant making a list, pretty much, along with as much of a 'this is how I fucked you over, and it was fucking wrong' as could be managed without revealing personal or falsely defamatory information about them that was not in public view.

Not gonna lie, I pine for a late 80s/early 90s WoD game some day, too.

@rucket If you want to call me a liar for not being willing to publicly post screenshots of the private, real life business that was shared with me, I invite you to call me a liar until my dying day, because there is not a snowball's chance in hell I'm going to violate the privacy of third parties as regards details of their real lives in order to satisfy you or any other member of the peanut gallery.

Nope. One of the main advantages of the setting: google doesn't solve every mystery, and communications are trickier.

I have yet to mav a TS pose to anyone. I have been in the hobby since... 1996? Yeah.

It does not matter that I could count the number of times I've TSed even to an ftb point over the past 2 years on the fingers of one hand and still have the thumb left over, this is a horror long overdue and the Sword of Damocles feel is real, y'all.

I live in terror of the shit fate is storing up for me on this front. Whenever that bomb drops, it might level Tokyo Tower.

@Roz It's definitely the place to try things out, I would think. Since it's mortals only, there's not anywhere near as much reading or stuff to learn as there would be in a game with supernaturals. That in itself is a huge plus when dealing with a new system and setting.

@testament said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

What I'm asking, after that long-winded opening is: have you forgiven someone in this hobby?

Yup! Lots of times. Often, it's for one of the following reasons:

• It was stupid to be angry about in the first place.
• It has been so long I don't even remember why I was mad to begin with.
• The person has demonstrably changed.
• The person has expressed genuine remorse for the bad behavior and taken steps to do better.

Or are you just not the type? There's nothing wrong in that, inherently. Once you're screwed, fuck that person, no matter how much they may change. They did you dirty once, so screw them and the horse they rode in on.

Some people are in this category. It takes work to get there. Not just being generically crappy, but engaging in a sustained effort to cause harm and be terrible. Hey, if somebody puts the work in...

Or have someone did a friend of yours wrong, and mob mentality takes effect?

Has definitely happened. I am very protective of the people I care about. I generally hope for good things for all of us screwballs in this hobby and will always hope everyone is doing well and having fun with what they're doing (provided their fun isn't being shitty to others, and some people do define their fun that way), but the people I really give a genuine damn about are very few and far between.

I can, and absolutely have, turned into rabid crusader bitch on this front. This is a tendency I'm taking a very hard look at now, because while I don't think it's necessarily all bad, it's a tendency that has been manipulated and weaponized before. There is really nothing so damnably dangerous as someone who believes they're doing the right thing, because when you think you're all grar for great justice? It becomes a moral/ethical/integrity thing. Most of us try to be decent people. If something appeals to the inner 'decent person', it's really easy for the fight to be harder, longer, and it's especially easy to lose sight of when it's simply become a fight between people rather than about the ideals that drove it in the first place.

Or were you the person that did the screwing up and how hard has it been for you recover from that?

Results pending? It's the best I've got here. It is hard in some ways, but not because of the other posters here. Blame the Roman Catholic upbringing or whatever, but there's a lot of guilt, it's fresh, it's raw, and knowing I engaged in and enabled some terrible shit is not something I will forget any time soon, and it'll be a while before I'm able to forgive myself for it, if I can.

Did you have to hide who you were?

I'm against this, personally. I understand people who do, or why they do. I generally try to keep a low profile on games -- sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't -- but more recently I've come to believe that it's better to be open about who and where I am, and if people love or hate me, they have whatever information they need to engage or avoid as they choose.

Play a different game with a different user name or email?

I did this in the wake of Spider moving out of my house. Half the hobby hated me for helping her, the other half for finally asking her to leave. It was no win for anyone, and I went to hide out on Shang for about 8 years.

Broadly: when it comes to forgiveness, some of it is pretty simple. If someone hasn't shown a shred of remorse for their bad behavior, is only interested in dodging the consequences of bad behavior, or whining about whatever consequences they are encountering because of their bad behavior? For minor things, I already give people far too many chances and will probably doormat in this manner until my dying day like a dumbass; for the major ones? I want them out of my face, and out of my life.

@Admiral said in The 100: The Mush:

I looked around at the place and there's two things that I think hurt an otherwise fine game.

1.) Lack of consequences. It's made clear that PCs can't die unless they want to die. In a survival setting like this it invalidates a lot of the risk. Even a super low risk of death from the environment/NPCs/plots/etcetera would help.

Is there a 'you're being deliberately stupid?' clause to that? Like, "I think that Reaper just needs a hug!" should definitely result in some kind of consequence.

But death is certainly not the only consequence someone can face; if it's just death that's off the table and other major consequences are in play, I have a hard time really calling this a problem.

A surprisingly low number of characters actually die on the show for what might be expected in the period of time the game is likely exploring, shortly after landing, after all. And they weren't necessarily all being the smartest tools in the shed about things.

(Not playing there, but have been considering it. Kinda a lot.)

@ganymede The people who do this shit tend to feel out people that can be pushed around, at least to an extent.

Typically, the targets are people who aren't inclined to want to rock the boat, tend to keep their heads down, don't aim for the spotlight all the time, don't want to waste time with drama or OOC conflict, etc.

Then they exploit those generally positive traits in a negative way -- because the know that person won't want drama with them, and they can be pushed, and pushed, and pushed. They push a little harder once in a while to see what they can get away with, too, and people get used to it. It's shitty, but plenty of people do.

You stonewall that kind of bullshit from the jump. It makes a world of difference, and tells this type: 'this is not going to be an easy tool, move along'.

@Kestrel I don't see how I have in any way implied anything only goes one way.

The 'don't come over here if you're a warm and fuzzy TSer' retort is, in fact, exactly what has been mentioned as horribly problematic. This assumption is, bluntly, something that smells like it came out of the back end of a horse and sits in a fly-luring pile.

What you're doing right here is assuming that anyone who doesn't feel like dealing with constant aggression 24/7 with zero reprieve is only after warm fuzzy TS and perfection, is a nasty-as-fuck thing to sling at someone, and that is what creates the hostile environment full of negativity that @mietze is describing as hopelessly counterproductive to both their experience and yours because you are the one who has decided: "This is how all the things are going to be and you're all just going to have to live with it."

That is not sharing space. That is 'my way or the highway'. You can warning label the shit out of it all you like, and yes, people should respect that, but right here, you're actively demonstrating a complete and total lack of not only respect for what others may want to do or be doing in the shared space, but zero inclination whatsoever to find out what that actually is because you have a hostile pre-conceived notion of what that must be if they aren't on the same page as you at what might be at a single moment in time.

@runescryer Not going to lie, there is a part of me that wants to ICly butt-dial someone now to do that on purpose some day, because I'm a horrible person.