Best posts made by surreality

@HelloProject Sincerely, don't be too hard on yourself, man. We all have those moments. Been having plenty of them myself lately, anyway, so for what it's worth, there's at least one person who gets it. (And I would bet a lot more than one.)

Take the time you need for you. Everybody needs that sometimes, too.

Some folks may think they're entitled to be gatekeepers or whatever, but nobody really is that. Heck, even the folks almost universally on record for doing massive harm or have an intent to do harm as predators don't get blocked out of participation save for by a small few, in the end.

By comparison? A random argument on a forum's pretty much nothin', and perspective's a thing.

It'll be ok, even if it doesn't seem like it right now. Be good to you, dude. If that means taking time away, that's cool, but don't convince yourself you have nothing of value to offer here or that everybody's gonna hate you forever or something and let that keep you away if you decide you want to come back some day.

I am just going to leave this here, because I laughed, and it seems like the right place.

There's not really a question about how emboldened white nationalist, anti-semitic, racist, and 'men's rights activist' groups are by the current state of affairs, no matter how horrible people may or may not have been historically. For many posting around here, at least, this is the most extreme president and circumstance in this regard in their adult lifetimes.

That it's a wakeup call to a bunch of people who maybe weren't paying attention to the existing ugly realities before isn't something I'm about to complain about or disparage. People becoming more aware of what the hell is going on is a good thing, especially if the result is that they actually give a fuck about what's going on and try to do something about it.

@Wizz said in The Descent MUX:

Sure, with the right Arcana they can have access to a much broader view of the CoD cosmology, but it's like a Neanderthal with access to the Hubble Telescope. The Hubris of that caveman thinking he fully understands what he sees should break him.

The problem is, this never happens on a MUX from what I've seen.

@Sparks I suggest something from 'Scanners' and would be in that camp, too.

edit: wait, better:

I mentally break them down like this, by the numbering provided:

1. This is a plot, consisting of multiple, ongoing scenes. It may or may not be a series of +events.

2. This is a one-shot, typical of the 'monster of the week' style encounter, self-encapsulated. It may or may not be an +event. It is not a plot, as it is not ongoing. People still tend to call these plots, they're just one-shot-plots.

3. This is a social event. May or may not be an +event. Not a plot.

All have value, purpose, and all require planning and prep. All should be valued by game runners, because they have purpose, and they all require planning and prep. Not all of them are valued by all players equally, but they don't have to be -- different strokes for different folks and all that.

@faraday said in A new platform?:

@arkandel said in A new platform?:

lthough my preference is for something that generally looks like a traditional MUSH client (an input line at the bottom, a main window for poses) with all of the additional UI elements added to it(a Hangouts-like chat list on a retractable sidebar on the right that you can hide, tabs for 'channels', etc) or on demand. Do I want to send you a mail? I right click on your name, pick that from a context menu and do so.

Yeah that all sounds great, but here we run into some practical issues. We want to have a game server that:

• Is easy to install with very little technical experience.
• Is easily extensible for whatever custom systems a game wants to add on.
• Supports a hybrid interface with multiple inputs.
• Has a really kick-butt user interface with all kinds of fancy UI elements.

Many of those goals are mutually-exclusive. The fancier you make something, the more complex it gets. The more moving parts you add, the harder it is to install. And so forth.

I think we have to be a bit realistic with our expectations.

(If only I could upvote something more than once.)

@Ashen-Shugar had a very important point earlier about this also: the kinds of things people are talking about needing and that are somehow and for some reason required so we don't all die oh no are equivalent to things that entire full time paid teams develop over a period of years.

That is not even a little bit realistic. If someone wants to try to take that on, more power to them, but stop stating it as a requirement for anyone to ever be interested in the hobby. It's not.

Again, of course all the people who used to be around all the time when they were in college don't have that kind of time now. Full time jobs and mortgages take precedence to pretendy fun time games for most adults. Maybe it will all go up in smoke when we collectively die. Maybe it'll all see a resurgence when the older farts retire and miss ye olden golden days of pretendy fun time land. Who knows?

Just please stop stating this as a requirement for survival because new college students don't think it's shiny enough or think something else is more fun for them these days. Whatever that thing is will go the same way this has in time. Those people may like some of the same things we do but wouldn't enjoy others, and as a result, the differing community expectations would not suit them at all no matter how many bells and whistles and WYSIWYG buttons and forms and contextual menus are available.

@Arkandel A really good friend of mine used the analogy, 'for a guy, a shortcut through a dark alley is a quick route home or an adventure, for a woman, it's the looming threat of a sexual assault waiting to happen.' He isn't wrong.

It's also amazing how the very same person doesn't see how, sometimes, games can be precisely the same way. Show up alone and on your own as a dude, and there's a world of possibilities. Show up alone and on your own as a chick, and too often, you're considered easy prey by the less savory folks in the community. (Lack of reporting and lack of staff willingness to take action even if someone reports further exacerbate this issue.)

@sunnyj This. It really feels like it lost its soul. It was not a pure soul, no, but at least it had one.

I can just feel the 'we got older and have more mortgage than hope now' in nWoD and CoD.

@Pyrephox If I could upvote this post three hundred more times, I would. Everybody please upvote this post? This post deserves so many more upvotes than my meager account can give it. Because holy hot damn is that truth.

People like to forget, often, that in the atmosphere for which the system is written -- a table, in the flesh, where people are visible and invited into someone's RL space and in punching and/or dice-throwing range -- these things are used on NPCs, and not fellow players. The shit people try to get away with online would never fly at any table I've ever seen.

The best advice I can offer on this front is to find a place that's new or starting up, or has just opened a new area or sphere. While some people come in as a pre-designed group, it's not a universal thing, and at that point everyone is 'new' so there are not so many circles that have already formed up at that point around RP that went down before you got there.

This is more a factor of time being a limited resource for most folks these days than it is deliberate exclusion, in most cases I've seen in recent years. There are certainly exceptions, but a lot of those are rather glaring.

You also have to be pro-active. If a faction group like the one @Derp mentions says it's taking new members, talk to them about it. Don't wait for them to come to you. (I have no idea if you do this or not, and not suggesting that you do -- but I've seen a hell of lot of people expect to be approached by every group on grid that takes new people like some kind of high school football star getting drafted for a college team, which is frickin' absurdity incarnate -- so it's worth a mention.)

Y'all are totally missing what I'm saying here. By a mile.

I am not, in any way, saying, "You can't do that."

I am saying: when we look at a physical confrontation, people have an innate understanding that the desired outcome (delimbing, per the example), requires a plausible means of removing that limb, and no one would insist, without some manner of special power or other magical effect, that you can slice off someone's arm by blowing glitter in their face.

We have an innate understanding re: physical conflict that to achieve a desired end (removing someone's arm), we need to rip that arm off or slice it off somehow. The cause and effect of blowing glitter in someone's face is not going to remove someone's arm, and if someone claims it's going to do that without special powers to accomplish this, we're going to consider them completely insane.

This is not the case with social conflicts.

People do not just want their desired outcome, they want their desired method to work.

It does not matter if their desired method is equivalent to blowing glitter in someone's face to slice off their arm.

Outcome is only one factor here.

Very few people will argue about outcomes.

Social conflicts become problematic when people are not focusing on outcome, but on insisting that both outcome and method are spiffylicious, even if the method is as inappropriate to achieving the desired outcome as the example of blowing glitter in someone's face to slice off their arm.

This is not just asking for outcome, it's asking for method: it's a double ask, which is actually asking more than we typically demand out of a physical conflict in this fashion.

Instead, if your stats say you can accomplish your outcome, this doesn't necessarily mean you get a free pass to ignore reality or plausibility or whatever in regard to your method. It means that you are very likely to know what method would work and that's the method you will employ to achieve your desired outcome.

This respects stats 100%, and respects a reasonable interpretation of fellow players' agency 100%. It has precisely zero to do with liking, or disliking, social conflicts.

I think -- and I could be entirely wrong -- what @Thenomain is trying to say is that once you install the MUX server, you essentially type one startup command and you have what you need to begin creating a play space on the creative front.

You have the four types of objects in place -- Player, Room, Exit, and Thing -- as well as basic communication commands.

Technically speaking, if your goal was to create a very basic, statless game, you already have more or less everything you need in place to start creating your grid/playspace by just adding and describing rooms, which is as simple as:

@dig RoomName=ExitToRoom;Alias;Alias,ExitFromNewRoomBackToThisRoom;Alias;Alias
@desc here=Here is a description of my new room!
(repeat as needed)

Most people are not going to want something that simple, but it actually is that simple if that's all you need.

Edit: And I am like... a page and a half late. Oops.

@Coin said in Social Conflict via Stats:

My only response to that is that two people who can't agree on what method would and wouldn't work are two people who really shouldn't be playing that together, which goes back to my earlier point. Everything I said is just as valid with "method" instead of "outcome".

Definitely.

I have no patience for the kind of person who says they can never be convinced, never be disbelieved, never be lied to, never be intimidated, etc. That is simply bullshit.

I do believe, like the glitter example, that if someone has the stats to <insert one of those things above> someone else, yes, that outcome absolutely needs to be respected.

It doesn't completely strip the target player of their character's real traits, however, and should not.

Just like a high brawl score doesn't make 'blow glitter at someone' a successful means of delimbing, no matter how much the delimber may want it to be the method, a high persuasion score doesn't necessarily mean <method of choice> is going to plausibly work, either.

The stats need to be respected by the target.

The method needs to be respected by the enactor.

I've pointed this out before and will again: there is always a crush of apps in the beginning. By the first or second idle reap, often about 1/3 of that population seems to drop out. This is because people are willing to give a new place, or a rebooted place, a chance.

It means the doorbuster opening is a huge stressful workload on staff -- which would be great if it meant things calm down after that initial wave of people who are willing to give it a shot thins out as the people who like what they find stay, and those who do not, idle out.

Unfortunately, instead of looking at that pattern we've all seen on a zillion M*s by now and recognizing for what it is, when the people who decided it simply wasn't for them fade off, as they always do, instead of people realizing: hey, this is a thing that always happens, not every game is for everyone, the people who remain instead put even more pressure on staff because "OMG PEOPLE ARE LEAVING! THE GAME IS DYING! YOU ARE NOT DOING GOOD ENOUGH! YOU NEED TO FIX THIS!" which is shitty, and ultimately incredibly unfair to the staff and remaining players who are endeavoring to contribute in whatever ways they are able.

I think it depends on what you're borrowing, ultimately.

The kinds of ideas you're describing? I think the vast majority of the hobby loves to see a good idea spread further -- and a lot of people post code, systems, policies, etc. to be openly shared or used by whoever wishes to make use of it. There's also the obvious advice: if you want to use a concept in use on a specific game, ask the staff there if they mind. I know everything I have up in dev I am more than happy to let anyone grab and use with my blessing and best wishes -- and most games I've seen go up lately are precisely the same way about their OOC content (house rules, policies, code).

I know I credit everything I've borrowed, and I ask -- even people I've been told I need not bother asking or crediting (again, because I ask every time anyway) I still ask and still credit. While most folks won't ask for credit -- I don't, and don't know anyone who does -- I like to include the credit anyway.

It's the IC content that I think gives people pause re: borrowing. Using a code framework, or a game system, or an effective house rule for an existing system, or a policy file, or a wiki thing, etc. is one thing -- it's OOC content. While there's creativity required, it's not the same animal as a setting, a character, a unique custom faction, etc. that is a part of that other world's unique story. Folks are (understandably, I'd think) less forgiving there.

I wouldn't even call the 'dream RP' example 'less innocent' -- or even an idea unique to Haven, unless they had a very specific sort of setup to bolster it. (I had a game in the early '00s that had this as a central theme, for instance, and I wasn't alone in that at the time.) Most games I've been on over the years have had characters roleplaying dreams/etc. to some extent or another; I've seen STs send out dreams as prequels to plots, and so on, as well.

Now, if they have, for instance, a specific faction that can go into someone's dreams and tinker with a set of uniquely written powers and history and so on, and you copy that verbatim (or even just with the serial numbers filed off), that gets much less innocent, yeah, as it's not just using the general idea of 'I'd like to promote the idea of people being allowed to play impossible or absurd things in a dreamscape as an option for the playerbase because it can be a lot of fun', but part of that world's unique story.

Not entirely sure if the difference is clear, as it's 7am and I'm on the wrong end of it and out of coffee, but hopefully that distinction makes sense.

@hedgehog Upvoted because I would so kill for this these days.

@Derp said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

All I was saying is that it seemed like a question was being asked, and then when people gave some responses, it came off like "I already have my answer for sensitive subjects".

I get this, but I wasn't asking 'just for me'; the time I've done that was to put the basics of a former site in progress to ask for input. This was spawned by the reactions to some of the setting elements in the ShadowhuntersMUSH thread, specifically. That larger conversation would be kinda crappy for everyone to have (re: 'how have other games handled similiar issues like this one?') in somebody's ad thread and it was veering that way fast.

Of course they can create the game they want. I was simply confused on why ask an opinion if you already know what you're going to do.

I don't do design by committee when the committee is a free-for-all. That way lies madness. Never have and never will. That doesn't mean that engaging in conversation about how other games have handled this (we've had historical games, how have they tackled it?/why do people feel the way they do about the Shadowhunters setting?/Do people typically want games to be sanitized for modern sensibilities?/etc.) isn't illuminating.

I also feel it would be a bit shit-heel-ish if I didn't mention what I intend to do, but only in the context of as one of many, because I'm not of a mind to ask people to share information I'm not willing to share myself.

Personally, I think that the things listed as 'what I'm actually wanting answers for' are... honestly, minutiae. There's no one good way to handle it. Someone's feathers are always going to get ruffled on those. And it sounds like you'd prefer to just use a prefs system to handle them anyway, so...

Personally?

The most useful post here for me in this context was from @GangOfDolls, describing the experience of her friend who was setting a game during a time and in a place in which slavery was part of that society, and the options and considerations they had to contend with in doing so. So far as I can tell, no one much responded to that, but that is an entirely different sort of decision-making process than just policy-making around an issue, it's a setting design consideration.

The other was @faraday's post about 'if it existed, it will be allowed', and that typical skewing the PC pool toward exceptions, its impact on the game, and the discussion that followed. I find it a little weird that people take such issue with this, since almost every game suffers from this issue; TR and FC hole-in-the-wall parts of the northeast are not, generally, overflowing with celebrities and endless billionaires and typically higher-than-book-average percentages of supernaturals for the size of the population, but I don't see folks generally insisting they not be allowed to make those characters because the representations of the mundane human population is not proportionally accurate.

@Kanye-Qwest That's 'bitching about it being silly'. Hell, I do that, too.

That's different from saying 'they shouldn't allow that to happen because it corrupts the purity of the setting by skewing it too far into unrealistic territory', however.

@Three-Eyed-Crow The other big thing with this, for me, is that you get to see who came up with 'that thing you like'. It may be a custom power or a cool business on the grid or a rules change or piece of code that makes everything easier for everyone. It's a positive reminder that even if the IC of a place is heavy duty PvP (and there aren't a lot of those out there), the OOC side of things is a collaborative effort. I also really like to know who created that cool thing that made me go, "Oh, wow, I wish I had thought of that!" because I am that person who will page them and say, well, exactly that, and I know there are a lot of other folks who do the same. So something with crediting/etc. on that end can be so big, so dang big.

Also, so many games share content these days that it means you know who to ask if you may, since not everyone has a github, or a wiki of their crap with a 'use whatever templates you like' note or similar. I know I like to know if something helps somebody out, and wouldn't touch something I didn't have direct permission to use (or isn't up for public distribution with a notice to that end), but that's really a sideline. It is cool to know an idea was liked enough that it isn't just immediately helpful at that moment, but is helpful even outside its original context.