Best posts made by surreality

The pipe is a lie?

One of the things that people who haven't read here due to their opinions of WORA probably haven't noticed is the low tolerance for pointless shit-stirring, slut shaming, and slur crap. Some of this may just be a factor of people growing up, and general culture changing since those days, but they were all prevalent on WORA. Very prevalent.

@Miss-Demeanor said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

@Thenomain You know, I have never played a 7th Sea game, but i have had so many friends tell me how amazing it is that I would absolutely try it. Also... pirates. God I would kill for a good pirate game. I WANT TO BE A PIRATE DAMMIT.

...that is actually what I've been working on since late October. OT/MUX, not 7th Sea/Evennia, but more Black Sails + non-WoD/Original Supernatural weirdness.

More or less everybody thinks <thing> is perfectly fine when they're doing it, and an utter abomination when somebody else does.

It's how often it happens that ultimately makes all the difference.

I've recently hit the 'I don't think I can do this any more' in terms of RP point, which, as @bored mentions, is a bit of a thing sometimes around here.

It isn't a lack of options for me, that much I can say. I long ago lost count of all of the people who, with genuine good intent, always reached out to invite me to join them on a variety of games whenever I'd mention being in a slump, frustrated, etc. There are genuinely good people here, full stop, who give an actual damn about the other people here.

So it isn't lack of options, at least not for me. It's that I genuinely appreciate people who, most of them barely knowing me from a hole in the wall, are that open, considerate, and welcoming. It's that I have had a pretty epic string of bad luck going on for about 8 years now, with what looks like it's gonna be the final blow to whatever heart I had to try the 'delve into a story and whee!' again; I've been dropped on my head too many times in a row on that particular trust fall and am brain-damaged at this point, more or less. The latest incident of this [not the batshit crazy story] involved a very dear friend of a handful of years, someone I can honestly say I trusted more than I've trusted anyone before in my life, and... well, it has all gone so sideways that somebody may as well have reached into my chest and tore my heart out, shrugged a little, tossed it over their shoulder, and wiped the blood off their hands on their pants before insisting everything's cool, right? Right? Yeah... no. After that, my heart for that part of the hobby, and any last little flicker of hope I could find any happiness there, is hidden under the raccoon's butt, y'all.

(Sorry... but it's about dead on.)

But about... 2-3 years ago, now, starting on WORA, I asked a lot of questions about how people do stuff. How would they improve it? And I watched the same arguments play out over and over, with very little ever getting resolved, and the only real agreement being that there was no way known to solve any of them. I stopped asking the questions, and instead started looking for the roots of the problems, as I saw them, and try to come up with ideas outside the echo chamber of 'it can't be done'.

And for the most part, I shut up, retreated into my cave, and tinkered. I expected it would be a process that would take, say, a few months. It's been years now. I'm still tinkering. It's slow going, but it's going. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. Once in a while, I still ask questions. I'm still interested in that project because, as of right now, at least, it's a problem to solve, and maybe it's something that could be useful to folks, some of whom I mention above as doing things I think are good and good-hearted things, and plenty of others who I have had plenty of fun with over the years.

There are always new and more problems, and when they emerge, they seem to do it here. Then they can get added to the list of things that, frankly, may not make me happy the way RP once did, but at least help to take my mind off of the being sad bit when I have to beat my head against code (which I am incredibly bad at) and so on.

The main reason I prefer self-aware assholery is that there's less drama involved, generally.

A: "You're being a total asshole!"
B: "Yep, I know."
A: "Knock that shit off!"
B: "OK."/"No." <action can be taken if necessary by staff or who/whatever>

A: "You're being a total asshole!"
B: "OMG NO I AM NOT! HOW DARE YOU!"
B to "OMG A JUST CALLED ME AN ASSHOLE!"
"OMG A is such an asshole!"
C to A: "You need to stop abusing B!"
A to B: "What the fuck, B?"
B: "I am not talking to you, you monster!"
B to "A is harassing me now!"
C to A: "Stop harassing B!"
...and so on.

Since I've been struggling with this lately, this topic came to mind.

While 'what are you looking for in a game' is a related question, it isn't actually what I'm asking here.

I think there are many reasons that draw most people to RP, and of the general questions below, most of them probably apply to everyone to a greater or lesser extent -- sometimes for good, or bad.

Escapism. Sure, this could be the 'my life sucks and I want a vacation from it' trope that immediately comes to mind when escapism is mentioned, but that isn't actually all it means and I don't think it's wise for us to limit the definition to that alone. For instance, escapism can be a way to simply turn off one's own thoughts and tune in to a different way of thinking for a while; people go to movies for escapism, play other video games, and so on, so I'm going to ask that that broader interpretation is the one to ponder here. Even if a game's premise was based on 'you are exactly the real you with no changes at all, but you're now dropped into a completely different reality where things work differently', it's escapism.

Wish Fulfillment. Again, there are the tropes and extremes here: the perfect one, the never-scared strongman, etc. That isn't all there is to it, though, and 'I'd like to let my brain wander through a fantasy where I don't have to ever worry about money', or 'I'm taller' or 'I'm a sexy bastard' or 'I want to imagine being someone who isn't in a wheelchair' or 'I want to be a supervillain!' (or the reverse of any of these things) are also equally valid examples here that aren't the negative trope extremes. While it ties in to escapism, it isn't the same thing.

Curiosity. Again, tied to both of the above, but not the same. "How would I react if I was actually <something different than who the real me is>?" This could be a different gender identity, age, class, race, imaginary thing, with or without certain capabilities you do or don't actually possess. This is the "I wonder... " rather than the "I wish... " above.

Creativity. How much does the basic process of creating something feed into, or detract from, your enjoyment of the hobby? Do you love creating character concepts but then just not feel like playing them? Do you hate the hurdles of chargen and just want to get into the meat of creating stories? Do you like creating stories for others?

Collaboration. Does this matter to you? Would you be just as happy creating in a corner and dropping toys on the playground for others? Do you like, or dislike, planning or brainstorming ideas for a story as a collaborative effort? Do you prefer or especially enjoy freeform collaboration of simply interacting IC without any plan ahead of time?

Winning. How important is it? Does it matter? What do you consider 'winning' -- beating another player at something? Solving a puzzle? Playing a scene you enjoy writing? This is one people talk about often, but the definitions of what 'winning' is in this hobby are often not simple ones. Even with varying definitions, by whatever your own metric for 'winning' is, how often do you want it to happen? How much or how little 'winning' are you willing to settle for, or consider a minimum to enjoy a game?

Challenge. How much of a challenge are you seeking? Tied to the above, but not quite the same. Where do you want the challenge to come from -- the world? Other players? Staff?

There are definitely more of these, but this is what I've got off the top of my head.

@Thenomain said in RL Anger:

Sometimes an apology isn't enough. Sometimes an apology is the wrong thing to do, because too many people stop there when they need to fix the damn problem.

^ This. Not in regard to you in any way, but in regard to that being a very broad, if not universal, truism.

Too many people have a habit of treating an apology like a 'get out of jail (almost) free' card, and there are absolutely certain circumstances in which actions have to back up the words for the words to have any meaning at all.

@Derp I actually agree 100% re: 'one true wayism' -- it's utter bunk, really.

I'm working on a system that may or may not suck. There are policies that may or may not suck (but are easy to replace). It's all set up on a wiki, pretty much, with slow tinkering on code to allow people to bring that data into the game. Chargen will be a simple web form.

Once all the various code and base game system is in, I'm going to be doing a clone of the droplet with a basic wiki design, stripped of any of the 'custom' stuff for this world and these policies to play in it, and... well, basically anybody who wants a clone of the stripped droplet can then have one to build from, with a system (that may or may not suck, but is/will be easy to mod/add to/subtract from) with little more than filling out some wiki forms required, really. No books required, all of the data required to play is right there on wiki and in game, sheets are being set up to be hot-clickable so you can double-check your weird ability X directly from your character sheet itself on the wiki (so no need for people to make themselves cheat sheets to remember what does what), just fill in the world/setting data you want, scrap whatever policies you hate, build your grid, and... well, ready to go, pretty much. (Part of what's taking time is that that means documenting EVERYTHING as clearly as possible.)

It'd only work through digital ocean, but they DO allow people to store a complete backup of a droplet, and then send copies of it to others, who can then boot it up on their own from there, and do whatever the heck they want with it on their own account with the framework foo pre-built.

Some things people would have to suck up, mostly: all the IC info (other than the content of jobs, alt IDs, complaints, and the necessarily very very private RL/OOC business of a game) is public due to the nature of mediawiki. Sheets are public. Backgrounds are public. Etc. But if people can live with that? It'll be reasonably painless, and I think/hope it may be one of the easier ways for new game creators to get a head start, since it'll mostly be 'fill out the forms with your creative stuff and it'll auto-populate the wiki and the +game files (which is hybridized news/+help/etc. with categories)'.

That's the plan, anyway. It would be easy enough for someone passably tech-savvy to adapt to an existing system, I would think, since I had it half done for CoD before switching over to the OT stuff, and I'm sure someone would eventually clean up the actual code to not be the kind of thing people look at and wince (while rubbing their temples and downing shots) in some later iteration.

So I'm working on a framework that can maybe be an easier head start, but the actual game? Naw, that's gonna be niche as hell and I'm happy with that. Separate things, just being built more or less in tandem.

@Ganymede Maybe you should direct your ire toward the person who came in and started slinging the shit, because that wasn't me. I have the same right to respond with an objection to being called a hypocrite as any given person on the forum does to being called a cunt, and I will not be chastised for doing so as if I'm in the wrong for doing it.

@Gingerlily said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Maybe someday there will be a Mu* gaming and design discussion forum that has no place for or interest in bashing other people (whether they feel like that bashing is totally legit or not, that is not what I am focusing on here)

Apparently there is one. Someone passed along the advertisement for it the other day. It's new, so I didn't see any posts there when I signed up.

http://www.mushology.com is it.

Part of the issue that forums have is that one person's constructive criticism is another person's bashing. Some places (and I do not know if that is one of them) utterly forbid anything but 100% positive commentary about the forum's subject, with no negatives or crit allowed. I find those spaces generally useless unless someone wants a place purely to squee about something they're a fan of with like minds (which absolutely has a place), but they're not really a thing for me.

@shangexile Dude. Seriously. No bullshit here.

You were a good friend for a long while. I get that you're going through some shit. No, I don't wish that on you. I wouldn't wish that on you even if the entire time I've known you, you acted like you have been lately, to be blunt.

I know that shit sucks.

I know you've come to me in the past for help. I have tried to help. I know I have not always -- or maybe even often or ever -- succeeded, but I have tried.

I am sorry that I let you down. No bullshit. I really wish I could have helped. I actually hate seeing the person I knew as the person I'm seeing over the past few months.

The blunt truth is that I am not in a position to help anyone right now, and have not been for some time. I do, actually, hate that. I have too much of my own shit right now that needs unfucking to be useful to anyone as emotional support or meaningful guidance on a personal RL shit level.

That doesn't, actually, make any goddamn difference from your end, in that your experience is the same regardless: I definitely let you down this time.

I know that. I understand that. I do, actually, feel bad about that bit.

Do I regret posting? No.

Because you crossed a line. Shit, man. (Here's where the popcorn assholes get their fill.)

Impersonating the ex? No, man. You know I left there over his bullshit and constant paranoid accusations and never really came back, even if I have a login to talk to people OOC from the out of the way of a rented room now, years later. So, yeah. I'm not ashamed to admit that caused a panic attack when it kicked off. Dude was able to unleash some serious hell and that that guy who used to flood my RL email with a hundred messages of 'slut' and 'whore' for hugging someone in the square one day IC, well. Pretty sure you can see why that guy being furious, believing I had him banned (I've never had anyone banned on Shang)? My RL was about to become harassment hell, from where I was sitting, until I grabbed the panicky reflex long enough to figure out you were 'cold reading' the whole thing and could calm the fuck down.

Would I have taken it down if asked? Yeah, actually.

I don't know if you're the dude I woke up to find a shit-ton of creepy 'I am outside your window, touching myself, watching you, I know what you did' pages from or not, but fuck, man. You do know where I live. You do know about my RL stalker ex who tried to straight up murder me and would pound down my fucking door screaming until the neighbors would call the fucking cops, as it was still going on back then when we spoke much more often, a zillion years ago. I really want to believe that wasn't also you, even with all this shit.

The shit you're doing is not OK. You know it isn't OK, and you know you need to stop, and need help finding a way to stop. I am not trying to condescend to you; I am saying that I recognized later that even the trolling crap back then was a cry for help in the form of lashing out.

I do want things to get better for you.

I can't be that help. I am sorry for that. I do hope you find it, though, no bullshit or snark. I am just in no position to offer it now.

I would, actually, be happy to mend fences with you or something some day. The dude I remember was a pretty awesome motherfucker, after all. Right now, though, man? We both need help, and the shit we need help with, I think it's fair to say, makes us really toxic to each other right now.

I haven't, btw, reported you here for anything so far as I can ever recall. I certainly haven't in any of the shit over the past few days anyway, even with all the shit flying around and people asking why I haven't. I have no desire to chase you off. I'm not willing to put up with jerky crap from you, but I'm not going to go so far as to say 'you are an ugly-hearted person and GTFO of my hobby/off my forum'. That's shitty to see aimed at you; I've seen enough of it lately aimed my way to not want to say that to you or anybody else. (There's literally two people I feel that way about: Spider and Rex/Sovereign.)

There's some other shit I would say, but is more personal than I feel would be appropriate to say in the open, for the same reason the private communication was not shared. (And it pertains to something in that, so.)

Regardless: I hope shit gets better for you. For real.

@Three-Eyed-Crow I'm kinda in the same boat. I hope they do well, since it's obvious a lot of folks still don't like the tone here and may be more comfortable posting there, which means another segment of the MUer population has an outlet/space to share stuff that'll doubtless ultimately cross-pollinate in a positive way, but beyond that, it's one of those 'it is what it is' sorts of things.

I tossed it out there since some of the folks less comfy here might be happier there. There was no content when I checked it out, but since I wanna build stuff, I'm willing to look anywhere for ideas, so why not.

As to all the general stuff about tone... the way people talk here is generally not how they talk on games. This is like the weird, shared water cooler lounge in a building full of fractious companies -- like what you'd end up with in the lobby of a building where, say, the tenants of every floor were all producing vaguely similar things for the same shared market, not necessarily competing with one another, but frequently talking about how their widget works compared to the other guy's widget, or wondering why the widgets on floor 14 are being made in the first place, or how the guy managing the widget design on floor 6 keeps getting away with screwing his secretary after hours on the desk because it's so totally obvious and dang, she's one heck of a screamer, ain't she?

As a friend of mine once put it, "In my profession, 'fuck' is not profanity, it's punctuation." That's as much a thing as the jobs in which a single 'fuck' would have you packing up your desk and scanning the want ads.

I will admit I swear like a sailor everywhere save for when I have to go do an in-person sales show or am actually talking through a commission with a customer, and even have a file up on the in-progress project that says, "Look, people are going to use profanity. Don't assume it automatically means they're trying to be horrible to you because they used a naughty word unless it's directly intended to be insulting and hurtful to you, because no words, whether they are naughty or nice words, are OK for that OOC." Because goddammit, if something is fucking awesome I'm going to call it fucking awesome. Conversely, I am not going to give somebody a pass for calling someone 'an ill-mannered lout of dubious upbringing and education' any more than I would if they called them 'a fucking idiot', because it isn't the choice of language used that makes someone an asshole under these circumstances.

We need a 'argue every general concept/game policy/house rule/poweridea/game pitch as if it's WoD by default' faction, but it needs a better name than that.

It would, I think, be quite large.

@WTFE said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

We know all too well that this is emphatically not the case in the real world of MU*ing.

This is truth.

One of the reasons I prefer this space to others is that I know that if I'm doing something fucked up, someone here will call me out on it.

Generally, I'm not keen on doing shit I know is fucking awful, so odds are good that if I'm doing something fucking awful, I'm not aware of it.

I'd like to be aware of it so I don't, you know, continue to do something fucking awful without realizing it.

I would prefer my being awful to not continue unchecked just because somebody's too worried about hurting my feelings to say, "surr, by twiddling the widget like that, you're totally screwing over the weebles and the wobbles, only a fucking moron would twiddle the widget like that, so knock it off, you dizzy, thoughtless twat."

@Bobotron 'As the World of Darkness Turns'

'There is no Dana, Only WoD'

@Sparks ...and I was totally going to make an edit with that! Ha! Yes, I have to agree. Seriously, if I had to say the thing I am working on is NOT WoD/CoD or using its rules! one more time... well, I guess I did shelve it, but one more time and I would have then if I hadn't.

It is the most honest title I could come up with. It's what it says on the tin.

A few quick disclaimers:

• I'm only kinda crowdsourcing here on select weird questions. (This is not intended as a free-for-all dogpile of every wishlist item anyone ever wanted in a game to get thrown in phrased as a requirement.)
• No, nothing's ready to get looked at yet. (Yes, I'll post when it is, promise.)
• Some stuff is already carved in stone. (And, well, deal with it, because it isn't changing.)
• I will totally add more disclaimers don't you test me! <fist-shake> (Ahem.)

General vibe of the project is as follows:

• Take one series of Black Sails watched at least 8 times back to back
• Take all of the PotC movies
• Imbibe lots of liquor
• Add all of the 'I secretly wanted to be a mermaid when I was a kid' that absolutely fucking exists in this hobby
• Insert one part 'WE GET CANNONS?!'
• Add all of the 'I secretly want to be a pirate even now that I'm an adult' that absolutely exists in this hobby
• Mix in select Lovecraftian overtones <plucks out the naughty tentacle to fling away> How did that get in there...
• Throw in some old lost island/civilization myths that are actually not at all about Atlantis I swear!
• Add a pinch of Lords & Ladies
• Maybe take some peyote? (Improvise here.)
• Throw in a dash of the spirit world
• Acquire copious amounts of rum
• Add in at least one plausible impression of Alien Guy
  
• Toss in just a hint of campy weirdness for garnish
• EDIT: Add the most absurdly baroque wiki layout ever
• Throw in blender, hit puree. (And wait several months. This gives people time to look up how stuff was in 1715, or watch all of Black Sails at least 50 times, either or.)

...if it doesn't make perfect sense, that's fine, but please note I'm not going to go into the weeds on explainers here because it's still being written down and I would really rather only do it once so please be patient until I can simply point to something, it's a lot of work and I'm already behind where I'd like to be on this.

This is not based on an existing game system or setting, and won't be. I'm not going to spend time trying to litigate the flaws in another system when I'm trying to get this one done. There will be time for mechanics input, but it isn't now.

There will be: humans, some spirit beings, and mer, which are more or less exactly what you think: fishy people of various types.

So here's the first questions:

1. Y'all are going to make me make cephalopods of some kind under that umbrella, aren't you. (There are already sirens and mermaids and a few other mer-things, some sparkle-shiny and some shuddersome and creepy.) If you want to be a tentacled creature (of the deep, not hentai), express your wants in that direction here.

2. Taking suggestions for a name that does not suck for a 'more or less crustacean-y based' sort of fish people character class, because after all this time, yes, there will finally be somewhere to play a were-mantis-shrimp (or werelobster, or wereprawn, or werecrab, I suppose, since classes are fairly flexible).

3. If there are any really unusual traits of aquatic life that you think warrant attention -- poison spines, camouflage, ink, bioluminescence, mantis shrimp punch-of-death, etc. -- for ideas for powers and such, links and ideas are very welcome. I have some ideas, but I did not actually grow up to be Jacques Cousteau like I wanted to when I was six (yes, really), so suggestions or links to truly weird and obscure sealife with curious abilities are quite welcome. (Do not worry about the mechanics, they are in the weeds! Deep in the weeds! Do not go into the weeds! The weeds are full of spiders, stay out of the weeds! The weeds are full of grue! Ravenous, spider-infested grue!)

@WTFE Among the less than three that won't be up against the wall when the revolution comes?

@il-volpe said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

I agree with @bored in the sense that I want to play pirates, but don't want to play pirates-and-mermaids.

The difference is, you did so without suggesting there's anything shady or illicit going on, and you didn't leap into a pile of negative assumptions about the most trite aspects of anything that has been referenced.

It doesn't offend me in the slightest if somebody doesn't like something that I know going in is absolutely and intentionally a weird niche concept game.

What does offend me, and is in fact offensive as fuck, is this:
There is not a game yet.
There is not a staff yet, beyond one person who volunteered to ensure that if someone ever has even the slightest issue with me and would feel uncomfortable bringing it up, there is someone with a proven track record in the community as being trustworthy and straightforward to whom they can bring their concerns without fear of reprisal. (There's no need for that fear, but since people still have it, there you go, there's somebody there just for that.)
Despite these facts, there are already accusations that only 'staff friends' will get anything shiny. Seriously? THERE IS NOT EVEN A STAFF YET.

@bored If I posted a thread about the entirety of 'my vision', it would not have been a thread that began thusly:

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

It is the most honest title I could come up with. It's what it says on the tin.

A few quick disclaimers:

• I'm only kinda crowdsourcing here on select weird questions. (This is not intended as a free-for-all dogpile of every wishlist item anyone ever wanted in a game to get thrown in phrased as a requirement.)
• No, nothing's ready to get looked at yet. (Yes, I'll post when it is, promise.)
• Some stuff is already carved in stone. (And, well, deal with it, because it isn't changing.)
• I will totally add more disclaimers don't you test me! <fist-shake> (Ahem.)

General vibe of the project is as follows:

And what follows is a very random list of basic elements with zero detail and a lot of random humor.

If that was 'the totality of my vision', well, that game would have been built in under two weeks.

If you've shown me anything, @bored, it's that no matter how detailed I am when writing help files or instructions, there's going to be somebody who decides to just skip that bit and reinterpret things as they choose, but this, I'm afraid, is not new news.

I don't think you're trying to scuttle anything here for your sake or @Lisse24's, either, but I do not consider it unreasonable to ask that you please keep the questions about theme/setting/inspirations to a dull roar when I have said "that's not ready for prime time yet, when it is, it will be posted". The irony of it all is, the specific things you've been citing about the reason you hate those themes are -- guess what -- something we agree about. I am not interested in an end of the world plot. I'm not interested in actual Lovecraftian mythos. I am not interested in aliens from Atlantis or undersea aliens at all, actually.

I am not and have not asked for positivity only, so that's another fun accusation to add to the pile, I guess. I asked for people to stick to the questions asked, and that I was neither prepared nor interested in going into the laundry list of wishlist or bane items that appear in every thread about any potential new game at this time.

And for what it's worth, '...I see no reason to include anything with tentacles' is a valid and useful reply. I was thinking less Davy Jones' beard than stuff like this:

...but if nobody wants that sort of thing, yes, please say so and spare me the time it would take to write it up!