Best posts made by surreality

Gina Torres remains an utter goddess, though, so so far as I'm concerned, s'all good.

@Kestrel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

In the other, more game-related direction, I'm very fond of the Richard Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, the author of which is the co-creator of the first MUD and I believe some kind of associate of Matt Mihaly, the founder of IRE.

How I know I'm old: I remember seeing this referenced back when it was a paper on a personal website. Wow. I am really glad to see it referenced and linked in its current form, though; I've also found it very helpful in game design. It's easier, IMHO, to hit all the bases for something like this with a MOO or MUD than a MUX, but that's based on my limited code ability and what was available back when I was still attempting it.

The code of MUX focuses strongly on the Socializer player type.

Grids have become much smaller over time, which limits the Explorer; I've looked at some ways around this for a super bizarre project I wanted to try and found some ways around it but there's no way around a somewhat larger-than-people-find-ideal-these-days grid. (That, or I am just used to people shrieking like harpies at any over all grid of more than 20-25 rooms; I'm accustomed to that being a minor side area grid from a main area that may have two or three of those springing from it from the days of MOO, by contrast.)

Ironically, I think this is where MUX could draw more people in, or provide more options than it currently does, it's just utterly counter to the current game design mindset in a number of ways and it's time intensive on the build side before the doors open -- many staffcorps are racing to open and there's simply no time for this level of detail. To me, personally, I consider this a drastic loss. We used to see more of it. It is/was a fantastic means of imbedding plot elements or story seeds in the setting that players can uncover and then explore or pursue, solo or with STs/GMs or other staff assistance.

Still in one piece. I'll try to post something longer whenever I'm home, since I am still made of suck on the finger typing, but surgery #2 is highly likely today, though not 100% certain, since it's an add on to the schedule. They shouldn't need a #3, or so everyone hopes.

Really keep your fingers crossed, y'all, 'cause we did apparently luck out in that the regional Luke Skywalker best suited to take out this particular deathstar was available today and today only, hence moving it up to now at all instead of it being a week or two out.

@Derp That sounds a lot like the area where 7D will eventually live. very much awesome, but yeeeeeah that's a big trade off. The folks I would stay with in the area it was based on did similar, same reasons, though they were on one of the more 'town' streets.

I'm with @Ganymede on this. Post-approval checking doesn't get around the fact that by approving the character, as staff, you have essentially told them: "What you have created is OK and safe to go on the grid."

Even in the most innocent of circumstances, with the best of intentions on all sides, when you tell a player something has to change after approval, you're essentially saying this: "I know we said that was OK, but it's actually not." This doesn't really engender trust in the best of circumstances, and can leave a player feeling like things can get yanked out from under their feet at any time, both of which are Not Great Things.

OK, so, I should actually hate this but it's too funny to not share and too funny for me to not love it just a little bit.

Apparently, the blazing ZOMGWTF illness was kicked off by deathstar gallstone from hell, which blocked everything off and started making my other organs get infected and blah blah blah.

When they finally got it out, the resident that was chattier and more friendly with us, who was there for the surgery, said part of the problem removing it was that it was 'a really weird sort of shape, about an inch in size, but more geometric, "sort of like those fancy gamer dice" (his words)'.

I am such a goddamned geek I apparently tried to grow my own D10. Now that I'm officially not dead hurray, I cannot NOT find this funny as hell on some level. (And quietly hope Chessex doesn't try to sue me or something.)

While they would not let me keep it to turn it into a pendant with 'my own personal doomsday asteroid, you missed motherfucker' etched into its setting (because I fucking would have), they will apparently eventually send pictures, which I'm kinda looking forward to despite the gross factor, because dammit I really gotta see this now.

I was there around... '97 I think?

I was a hopeless clueless newbie and highly dumb. I was Mayor Mike, the six-armed stripper chick that ended up elected when the guy who was always mayor didn't feel like doing it for a term and it was open. I promptly ended up having to leave the game due to RL (my grandmother, who raised me, was dying ) but not before the character got married to someone whose street name she knew -- but not his real name.

She did not realize his name was Edgar Caine, and that she was now...

...Michael Caine.

Sometimes I love this hobby for the accidental hilarious weirdness.

Can we maybe go back to keeping politics in the politics section, maybe? Because really, we have one for that purpose.

@Auspice said in Pretendy Fun Time Games:

Funny enough, I just sidebar'd a bit in another thread about how much I hate how often 'my fun' is used these days. And 9 times out of 10 (in my own personal experience), it's used to excuse really shitty behavior. Sure, it's your fun, but this is a shared environment, yo. You don't go to a fancy restaurant and begin shouting your entire conversation (at least I hope not) because hey, other people.

The biggest reminder I always have, on a personal scale, of a 'my fun' person was someone who would mentally calculate out her char's future path... including how other characters are involved. Except she'd never tell those people. So when Bob would end up dating Suzie, she'd flip out at both Bob and Suzie OOCly because 'THAT'S NOT WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN' and go off and tell everyone else how Bob and Suzie ruined her fun because Bob was supposed to date HER... except she never told him any of this and just made assumptions.

My fun is all well and good... until it's negatively affecting other people. At which point: just write some damn fanfic.

The type you're describing seems to forget that once other people become involved, 'my fun' must necessarily morph into 'our fun', which is a partnership, not a dictatorship.

Crappy phone photos are crappy, I know this.

This is the reason my hands hurt over the weekend:

...there are two of those, three of another kind in the same beads that's shorter, and another one that's twice as long as that one with a supplementary piece that clips it into different drapes. OW.

This is the reason I have crampy crab hands today:

...and this is the project leash. On my screen, at least, at full size, my hand is exactly that size, as in I can put my (scrawny short girl man hand) right over it and it fits, but I'm not sure if the forum will resize it or not. The piece in the pic with the project leash is the one with beads on it above, for an idea of scale. Yeah, ow ow ow ow ow. Both of those are 'since around midnight', so at least they're not taking quite as long as I worried they might?

...this was the summer project (well, this and about 50 more similar to it) but I've tried to explain it to people and explaining it just confuses everyone. All the chain there, save for the shiny copper bits, we treated with a bunch of patinas. The shell is an actual shell I ended up dremeling the upper hinges off of, painting with a high metal content paint, and then also slathering in patina chemicals for something along the lines of an 'aged bronze' effect.

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Shame Game:

What is up with that? I want to know who downvotes me! I want to know so I can drink deep of their delicious hatred, or mild disagreement with whatever I've said. Mmm, delicious mild disagreement.

I know, right? It's pretty dumb.

There are basically three kinds of downvotes.

1. "I disagree with this but don't actually care enough to articulate the reasons why."
2. "OMG MY FRIENDS ARE BEING DISAGREED WITH AND THIS CANNOT BE TOLERATED."
3. "I hate your face and everything you say turns me an increasingly vivid shade of puce."

None of which are worth getting worked up over, none of which could be considered 'shaming'. The first is mild but generally useless feedback as it contains no real counterpoint, and the latter two are pretty expository of who still thinks this is high school.

@Shiggy said in RL Anger:

If a party expects me to sacrifice my own interests in the interest of gay wedding cakes and tranny bathrooms, a significant amount of public dignity is going to be due to me in the long run.

Due you, is it? (And here, there are giggles. Oodles of them.)

Unless your interests are somehow against LGBT folks having wedding cakes, or have some pressing concern about restroom usage, you sacrifice nothing, you lose nothing.

I mean, how dare those people want to bring attention to the fact that they desire same rights you already have. The nerve! Clearly, you're due some attention for... wait, what, having already had them all along or something?

You are getting dumber by the post, dude.

@Cupcake said in The Shame Game:

@VulgarKitten said in The Shame Game:

@Arkandel And the opposite of that 'hey do you mind if we FTB on this sexy times stuff?' SHAME that chick is such a prude. It's just a game. You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't, depending on the person.

I think this pretty much applies to any situation in which someone is engaging in RP behavior that others decide (for good or ill) is worth shaming.

This one right here is where I always point back to the 'pretendy fun times' thing.

I mean, ultimately?

Who cares if somebody likes RPing sex. Or cooking dinner. Or killing monsters. Or going to the prom. Or whatever, really.

This always irked me even more when whatever the activity is is ultimately a case of 'two people go off to a private space where they aren't bothering anybody at all to paint each other's IC toenails/read each other's' tarot cards/watch a movie/juggle chainsaws/etc.' I mean seriously. 'People are spending too much time off in private away from the group that needs them' can be valid in extreme cases of time spent away from IC responsibilities, but really isn't more often than not. What they're doing in private just doesn't matter and is so never ever going to matter.

But people want to make it matter when it's some things, and not when it's others, and exactly... it's so arbitrary.

The solution is simple, too. "Hey, X? There's some plot stuff folks want you to set aside some time to address/folks need to meet with you to be able to move forward with their characters in the faction/etc. When can we do that?"

Set a time, run with it, handled. Easy and zero drama, everybody gets what they want.

If, that is, that's the real motive for the behavior.

Part of what's so frustrating about the excuse people use for this gossipy crap is that it's a 'problem' that's very easy to solve if you're dealing with someone who has even the slightest shred of responsibility.

Which means it's really just gossipy crap for the sake of gossipy crap with a flimsy excuse to hide behind to try to get away with being gossipy twits.

This is admittedly one of the things I also get very growly about; I don't like the high school gossipy headgame crap, and even when it's people I adore engaging in it, there is a part of me that just cringes internally at best. (I actually hate it more when my friends do it than when it's done to my friends. My friends can defend themselves; I don't like having to defend people from my friends, but I will, and shit, that's awkward.)

@Ganymede said in The Shame Game:

Things probably eased up because, over time, even basement-bound nerds can get a little something-something.

Or enough of 'em got caught at it it wasn't worth trying to hide any more.

ALSO. You can all hate me because we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse for Good Friday.

And it was really fucking good.

Just to talk about awesome expensive meat. And they had candied bacon.

So you can all hate me for being a heretic and/or enjoying that the Brazilian Steakhouse in a college town on Good Friday was dead fucking empty because spring break + heresy and they were really really really trying to feed the hell out of us as some of the precious few people there.

My answers on this one.

Just about any subjects will do, save for those I specifically avoid, but there must be more than one. Variety is necessary. It doesn't matter if it's my favorite thing ever, if it's all that all the time, I am going to get bored. I am going to get bored much faster if it's a perpetual downer, if not put off entirely.

Further, some semblance of balance amongst those elements is necessary. (A token political intrigue plot once a year on a game that's otherwise all war all the time isn't what I consider balanced.) If a game has a lot of bleakness, it also needs a dash of wonderment. If a game is high conflict, it needs moments of peace and celebration. If a game is mostly fluff, it needs moments of gravity and danger.

A semblance of balance of good and bad is needed. This doesn't need to be equal at all. Even 25% good and 75% bad is, in my perspective, viable.

Specifically avoided:

• One no-win scenario after another. I think these are good to include, but they need to be included sparingly.

• Something that cannot be resolved, explored further, learned from, or is otherwise nothing but a dead end, and is ultimately suffering for suffering's sake or Monty Haul gifty-wanking bullshit.

• Any time people think they're pushing the edgy envelope for its own sake, or shock value. Every time I've seen this done, it completely lacks any and all depth or actual gravity. (This can happen in any genre or on any subject, really.) If you're going to go over the top, have a firm reason for doing so, and be sure to convey that reason clearly in the course of play.

• Lack of time to ICly process events in personal RP or lack of necessary staff-supported followup on the consequences of plots or other major game action. I'm not looking for a roller coaster; if there are breath-taking highs and stomach-dropping lows, I want the characters to have time to fully experience them, think about them, and figure out how these events actually are somehow relevant (or not) to them in their lives -- not immediately skip ahead to the next high or low as though these things have zero impact whatsoever. If they have no impact, what's the damn point, anyway?

Staff support: some things, it helps. Others, I don't want them involved at all. I don't want staff butting their nose in to track TS/rolling to see if my char is suddenly pregnant/deciding who my character is involved with/etc., for instance, but I do want them there to answer questions or handle rolls if my character is doing followup on a staff-led plot.

The biggest thing for me is that staff not 'wrongfun' things that are explicitly permitted on the game. If you don't want people doing it, don't allow it in the first place. Don't make the players feel like shit for pursuing allowed fun, or that the only reason that fun is allowed is so that staff can use it as an excuse to hammer anyone who enjoys it. Similarly, don't publicly revel so much in one kind of fun that it makes it seem like it's really the only thing that is really acceptable, and everything else is barely tolerated while you pinch your nose and disdainfully glance away.

@Thenomain Patchwork person, clearly, built to order as a sexbot. Totally has to be the thing.

@Swaggot said in Making a MU* of your own:

@surreality I've seen the requirements to go from "no" to "yes" in a lot of cases and it usually amounts to castrating the concept.

I'd love to know what kind of examples we're talking about.

• Are they people asking to play an LOTR elf on a Game of Thrones game? (Heard about it, didn't see it personally. Have seen someone come to a WoD game and ask to play a Strix, though, that was... special.)

• Are they people showing up on a game where everyone is given the same amount of points to spend to create a starting character, and scream and flail when told they won't get more to make their character because they just don't want to play a starting character so why should they have to? (Seen it. "Because everyone starts with the same amount, no exceptions.")

• Are they people showing up with, "And I was a fairy when I went to fairyland, and then became a vampire in WoD, and now I'm also a mage from when I played on a Dresden Files game, and then I also became a werejaguar when I lived in Anita Blake world!"? (Sorry, this game is not that game, and we don't have fairies or mages or vampires or werejaguars in ours, so you cannot be or formerly have been those things in-character.)

• Did they show up on a game that had a list clearly labeled 'forbidden concepts' and seemingly concoct their order off that list like a combo plate menu at a Chinese restaurant? ( @WTFE probably remembers this list, how extreme the concepts were, and can imagine how hilarious that had to be when that one went down.)

All of these examples happened. All of those above? They're the just plain "no", because all of the situations above come down to: "We have rules, and you're expected to play by them, too."

This is not staff being assholes. This is not staff "castrating someone's concept" for "being too interesting". This is staff not granting some people permission to break rules everyone else is following just because the player wants to, thinks they're special enough to warrant an exception, thinks they're just that much more amazing than everyone else, etc.

This is the entitlement problem in the hobby.

The most important parts of the concept are what are usually expected to go because they're too interesting.

I have not once seen a concept denied for being too interesting. Not in 20 years. Not even in the years of tabletop and LARP before that.

So you're going to have to define what you mean by interesting, here, I guess.

@Ganymede In all seriousness, Best Cat (as mentioned elsethread) once mimicked me, while I was helping my husband deal with a sudden 'omg I got twin charlie horses in my thighs!' incident. She apparently stepped and leaned on the exact spot where he needed pressure, and yowled at him, while I had the other side.

For bonus amusement, my husband is a massage therapist. (He has gotten much mileage out of this story.)

@Thenomain I think of this kinda like the alpha/beta thing. Or a soft open -- when the basics are in, but everything needs testing and the flavor factor still has room to grow/expand/be fleshed out and people can have a real impact on shaping it.

By basics, I mean the following has been chosen: core type (MUX/Penn/Rhost/etc.), game system, general setting (target mood/era -- location can actually be more hazy than the other two but there should be an idea of what kind of location it should be, ex: big city, region, world-wide, small town), primary intended play style (PvP focus? Consent/non? etc.).

I don't think I'd, personally, drag a bunch of people into something and do the MUX equivalent of the old movie classic of, "Hey, guys, let's put on a show!" -- because a lot of the games I've heard pitched and brainstormed up amongst a crowd that no one's ever heard of because they never got past the brainstorming/creation stage started off the same way. (I've been involved in at least a dozen or so of those over the years.) No one's ever heard of them because they never got past that stage of development and died before they were known about more broadly.

Basically, it's just as easy for things to explode/implode this way as succeed, I'd think. Which is unfortunate, but thus far the record I've seen on this is 0/? against it working out. (I've never been on one of the ones where it worked in that stage to see what, exactly, they were doing or not doing; the one I was working on that may have survived was my old mortal/+ one, but I tabled it consciously/by choice when BITN emerged.)

I think this likely worked a little better before the entitlement and paranoia booms we've seen in more recent years, which is even more sad, when you really think about it. It kinda shows how pervasive 'we have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us' can be. As to the entitlement factor, just watching how much some folks flipped their biscuits over Echoes is telling. On the paranoia front, there are a lot of very vocal folks who instantly question 'how much was GrudgeBaitPlayer involved in the creation of this stupid policy/faction/etc.?! How do I know they didn't unfairly influence the development of this thing for their benefit?!?!?!' -- and such. It doesn't matter how irrational the complaint, or how ultimately ridiculous, because that shit breeds so much more needless paranoia and is ultimately draining as hell on the creativity and motivation in the end.

I can only offer some weird advice from a former creative professional in a variety of... well, a variety of weird things.

If it's what you love most, consider not doing it for a living. This is strange advice, since most people will tell you to pursue that because you'll love what you're doing, but as @Meg mentions, a lot of what you're doing in that thing you love will absolutely not be something you love about it. It makes it real easy to kill your love for that thing.

It is better to pick something you are already decent at, and really like. The thing you love will break your heart eventually, somehow. It sucks, but it's the truth. It is very hard for things to not get really personal when it's something you love. Something you like and enjoy doing is a much better choice, because you're just not emotionally invested in the same way.

Second, make sure you have a hobby. I realize this is something stupid to say on a board literally dedicated to a hobby, where for the most part we all share the commonality of current or former participation in it, but it matters. Have something you love as a hobby but have as little work or responsibility in as possible. If it becomes more work and responsibility than enjoyment, it's no longer really a hobby in the way a hobby is ultimately a healthy thing to have. Your hobby should be a release valve, not a source of stress and frustration.

Do not let people try to pressure you into doing something professionally that you want to keep as a hobby for enjoyment alone. I cannot overstate this enough. As a fellow creative person, who has done a lot of 'this looks like it would be fun to try' creative things, more of them have ended up as 'jobs' than I ever wanted any of them to be. This was due to pressure from my family to monetize literally every single thing I have done even passably well since childhood. I have learned the very hard way that there is nothing that will kill a happy passtime faster than someone strong-arming you into trying to make a buck off it, especially when you're still just trying to learn the ins and outs of it, because they don't know what it entails and aren't interested in hearing anything about how you don't feel qualified, skilled, or ready to take such a step.

As for how to find something to motivate and do? I wish I could be more help, sincerely. I just know the pitfalls above, know most of them far too well, and would rather not see anybody else fall into them if it can be avoided.

It's also worth mention -- and maybe this is just me thinking too much in 'what I wanna do' terms here -- that I think games continue to be fleshed out more and more the longer they exist.

For example, I want this process to become a part of the game itself, in the current project. I want people to be able to develop unique areas and territories. I'm looking at a variety of means of encouraging this, too, not just before the doors open, but as an active and ongoing process, as a part of normal game operation and play. (Worldwide grid. There's room for this to happen. That choice alone has changed more than a few dynamics from square one, and giving people the freedom to create spaces of their own to whatever extent is a huge one.)

I like the idea of building these things into the game itself -- not just before it's open. I've seen various takes on this, but the amount of it that's most common is still somewhat limited.

Tangent alert: In part, I think people hate on building more than they once did; I 'grew up on' games where you could build a wee sprawl of your own as a territory and develop and encourage play there much more than the typically hyper-restricted and limited stuff I see a lot of in recent years. I also know how much people actively enjoyed that, and it was partly because they were contributing something to the larger reality of the game, but also because it was something that was uniquely theirs.