@skew said in Horror MUX:
heavy choices
^ This. This is really the core of the horror aspect: having to make almost impossible decisions.
Confronting that sort of thing is what sets the game apart in a lot of ways. It isn't the angsty, endlessly bleak hand-wringing of WoD; it's: "You have to make a life or death decision, right now, and if it goes wrong, it's going to go very wrong," in many cases.
@Ghost Yeah, our parents' generation is horrifyingly racist sometimes, but at a certain point -- and your friend is definitely there -- at which there really is no reason to belabor this other than to make someone feel really horrible about their life before it's over, 'cause it's not like she's interacting with anyone else, from the sound of things, to be a danger out there doing any form of harm to people because of it.
My mother will insist on endless chronicles of the lives of the saints when it comes to that time; that would be destined to be such a hell on earth that I might eventually be able to claim actual martyrdom. My father would pick his (huge) collection of 40s pulp novels, which are probably also full of shit racist enough to make me choke on the regular, and it will amuse him greatly.
This is kind of a weird one, but it is pretty spectacular.
When shit goes not quite sideways but definitely oblique, you can't tell why, and have no clarity at all re: what the heck is going on, but know something's gone screwy? ...and you're unexpectedly stuck in one of those spots where the resulting IC misery just sorta seems to loom like the sword of Damocles over your head as something way less than fun that doesn't seem to be anybody's fault?
...the collection of people who grab you by the hand/hair/back of your shirt/seat of your pants and drag you into Fun and/or Fascinating Things To Do without ever even knowing what's going on, just that you're somewhat down and not seemingly not so excited as you usually are.
These people are amazing. 
@Ghost ...but the WASPiest suburban Catholic church choir ever should never again attempt 'Go Tell It on the Mountain'. Never.
Never, ever, ever.
Like shit you can't unsee, there is also shit you can't unhear. Often, in your nightmares.
What I'm essentially saying is that I'd really like to see something like GURPS -- not the actually system, but the concept of the system -- designed for MUX.
Scaleable.
Modular.
Adaptable to various eras and settings and universes with unique abilities or systems or whatnots that people can add for their world as needed.
People can and should design their own worlds and settings. Even with source material -- be it an existing game system or other inspiration -- we end up doing this anyway.
@Ghost My mother is in that choir. Every Xmas, her 'gift' was 'I sing with her in the choir'. Despite being so Not Remotely Catholic. This is the one upside to fucking up my throat a few years ago, because after that year, I... <eyetic>
You know it's bad when the rehearsal host cheerfully chirps, "There's wine and cheese and clementines for after rehearsal!" and the choir director quietly tilts down his head and mumbles, "Can I have the wine now? We should really all have the wine now. Maybe it will help," into the sheet music.
Their typical style is... very Pirates of Penzance. So just imagine the Modern Major General sharply and crisply and operatically going for the 'when I was a sinner' solo, and... shit, just remembering that makes me wish there was wine in the house now.
@roz I'm fine with them if it's a secondary reference or necessary distinguishing clarification; repeating the name multiple times or drowning in a sea of he/she/they gets to be a different sort of repetitive, and sometimes confusing in scenes where one she is doing something to indicate another she, etc.
Ex: Sarah didn't want Sue to go. She knew she was leaving, but she wanted to make sure she had all her supplies before she went. vs. Sarah didn't want Sue to go. She knew she was leaving, but the attentive teacher wanted to ensure her student had all her supplies before she went.
One's a bit clearer than the other for the fast-paced reaction time required in RP, and avoids getting lost in the pronoun weeds.
@Thenomain I still seriously loved Carnivale. Still do.
One of the pipe dream game settings along the way was a twisted mashup of that and Firefly: a traveling space carnival with that dustbowl feel, set on the ship caravan traveling along a series of rag-tag frontier worlds instead of a traditional highway.
@pyrephox None of that is 'crazy things intended to break the system' at all. It is stuff different people could consider within the bounds of what's written there, because there are no parameters established for what constitutes a reasonable or unreasonable interpretation of the text.
They got better about this very real issue in later editions, but that writeup is really quite bad for that reason.
Most of those I'd consider reasonable applications of the skill as an ST; some, I wouldn't. Some would be fine for some characters, and not fine for others. In a tabletop game, with one ST, and one ST's interpretation of the text, one knows what to expect when they sit down to that game at that table, and can choose to play by that interpretation or not.
In a game with multiple STs, you're going to have multiple interpretations of what is, and what is not, reasonable. That is one layer of 'problematic' added to the translation of the system from tabletop to MU.
In a game where players operate autonomously without an ST more often than not, particularly in the social aspects of play, and this is the vast majority of play that most players will experience, you add more layers of difficulty based on even more variance in interpretation, and it becomes more prominent an issue than it would be in your average tabletop game due to the amount of time spent in social aspects of roleplay vs. mental or physical aspects of roleplay by proportion.
Having a mild allergy to penicillin. Holy shit is this a pain in my ass.
...Bactrim doesn't work, GP-Doc. Stop giving it to me, please. No, really, really Bactrim doesn't work -- you've given it to me for everything for so long it's useless now; all it does is hyper-inflame everything in its rush to push the infection out of my system to the extent that I break out everywhere and my skin starts abrading if I do so much as dare to wear clothes other than a night shirt, just in time for the antibiotic to run out and I'm covered in peak-level awful in places where there was never a problem in the first place, which then becomes a bigger problem than whatever I started off with.
^ The long-standing problem exposition.
This has been my life for over a month now:
GP-Doc: "Sorry, I know that sounds really bad, but we can't see you until next Friday at the earliest. I'll set that up for you now."
(By that weekend it was ER time again.)
ER-Doc, no, please don't give me Bactrim. It hasn't ever worked for me properly and makes things worse rather than better, and damn it does a number on my stomach in the process. Oh, they've just been not having me take enough of it to get rid of the problem? OK... I guess I'll give it a try... 5 pills instead of 2, ok, you're the one with the degrees and that you insist that the problem before was because they weren't giving me enough of it, that makes enough sense that it's worth trying.
(Cue the problems just being 5x worse and it still not doing the necessary job; the moment the Bactrim runs out, it goes back to being worse than what it started out as that sent me to the ER in under 2 days.)
Surgeon, seriously, don't prescribe Bactrim for me. It makes everything so over the top inflamed that when I remove the surgical tape it pulls my skin off with it in patches. Oh... which antibiotic it is doesn't matter really because you did the surgery and that's what'll ultimately resolve it? OK, I guess I'll give it a try...
...did he seriously just give me 2/day again when 5/day didn't fucking work? FML.
(The same day... ) GP-Doc, I have a problem. Yeah, we called you and the surgeon to get appointments and he was actually able to have me come in immediately, which was handy. But here's the problem... <places empty pill bottle on counter, places full bottle on the counter> 5/day didn't do the trick on this. 2/day is not going to do jack and we both know that. While I'm going to try it, can you please get me an alternative so when this inevitably goes sideways I don't have to have that seriously emotionally rattling surgery again? (I am not saying what it is or giving the details about it here because it is definitely the sort of thing that'd put everybody off their lunch, fuck knows it redefined 'body horror' for me for years to come, no doubt. It's not embarrassing or anything, it's just horrifyingly gross.) Thanks, man. I have a feeling I'm going to need this.
(Cue the week trying Bactrim 2/day leaving a veritable ring of scars around the incision from dressing changes -- with the sensitive tape and everything. Incision? So inflamed the skin around it is showing the initial signs of going necrotic. FUCK. Switch to the alternative; in under a day and a half I stop shedding patches of skin like a snake and the incision returns to the appearance of healthy tissue.)
Followup with surgeon: "This is doing very well!" "I dunno, doc... it was gone before and I can feel it swelling again, but the incision is closed, so I'm really concerned about this... " "Oh, that's just a thing that happens. You're doing really well! It will take about 2 months for the incision to fully heal, but in a week or so you should just be able to cover it with a band-aid." BTW please don't give me Bactrim? It is really messing me up, look at this, my skin looks like a map of a string of islands made of scabs here! Nurse: "Let me write that one down, that should not be happening!" ...at which point I watch her write down: NO BACTRIM.
Three days later... : WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT?!
Two days later, surgeon: "Oh, that really is a problem. I'm going to have to repeat the procedure, we can take care of this quickly... " Worse, because I know what's coming, and I have now seen what this looks like in demo vids. WORSE worse because the local didn't hit the right nerves in all areas.
"I'll give you another two weeks of antibiotics, and come back in about 10 days so I can take a closer look at that."
...and the motherfucker seriously went with 2/day Bactrim again.
Bonus irony: I never knew why I was allergic to penicillin. My folks had just told me I was since I was tiny, so I repeated it. Apparently, my 'horrible allergy to penicillin' was... I got a minor reddish splotch-rash on my legs that went away after a day and a half, sort of like a very mild case of hives. Which my folks weren't sure even then weren't just my normal allergies. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!
Seriously, FML right now.
@tinuviel I have actually seen this come up -- not in the thread, but absolutely on games, and not infrequently.
It is somewhat camouflaged by the fact that it gets classified as 'avoiding hot-button political issues' rather than 'avoiding unpleasant historical realities', but it is ultimately the very same animal in practice, and the same arguments regarding engagement with these themes apply in a modern setting:
"It exists in the world, so it should be fair game for RP."
"I have to deal with this issue on the daily RL, and I don't feel like dealing with it in my RP all the time."
"Removing these things from the world today would make the world today a very different place due to the impact these conditions have on daily life." (Domino effect.)
..and so on.
@Aria I'm in Delaware, so that could absolutely happen at some diner somewhere some day.
I only ever met the resistance dude relative, but I can only imagine. He's another great 3am diner story, because wow... he was a character all right. It rightly should terrify nigh everyone that I'm one of the handful of people in my family that even bothers to try to pass for sane. (Resistance Great Uncle was... well, he was a baron. Really, no shit. Of course, he lived in the crappy middle-middle class suburb one over from ours, was more broke than we were, and insisted on playing 'Lady of Spain' on the accordion at every. single. family. holiday... could cook a mean veal cutlet, though.)
@faraday Yep, that was the crux of the previous post. It's much more extreme in the historical period, but the combination of the 'distance' provided by the time difference removes some of the immediacy, and the more intense version of most issues in a historical setting also increases the empowerment factor for folks looking for that kind of 'overcome it' story.
Some folks won't be interested and may be completely averse to the themes on the whole either way, but I can absolutely understand why some players may be open to exploring these these themes in a historical setting and opposed to dealing with them in a modern one for those reasons.
@Arkandel Well, yeah, but none of us are getting paid the "big" HBO bucks (and substantially bigger fame) as a reward for having to stand in the same room as the people we can't stand.
Shit. I would gleefully play evil queen torture-happy smugbutt at Rex or Jeurg for free if my profession demanded it, man. Being paid for it would just be a fucking bonus.
"I am just getting into character. Method acting." <cough>
@bored FWIW, while I don't agree with some actions Ark has taken in this case, I think it's fair to say he's not taking the action he's taking to protect a buddy. He has very strong feelings on fairness to the accused, which is in itself a laudable thing -- I think the assessment here is right, though, on the whole, otherwise.
I have not asked him to ban her or remove her bit, which he's mentioned himself.
I cannot say I am comfortable with her having access to player IPs on the forum, knowing how often and widely she is staff and thus has access to IPs on games as well. I am really trying to not comment on this aspect of the discussion, but this in particular has me notably uneasy.
I'm pretty sure that if a poll went up asking how comfortable other posters are with that notion, this would not be a tiny minority opinion. (Not suggesting that be done, either, but my inner Miss Cleo has a hunch here. Or I could be completely full of shit delusional on this front. Either is entirely possible.)
@Kanye-Qwest All the hells no. 
Definitely under the heading of 'nobody has time for that shit'.
@gangofdolls This. This many times over. The people in question who have contacted me about it, I've talked to. Those who asked for evidence/logs/screenshots were given them.
If they wish to share those things with Ganymede and Arkandel, that is up to them. If they want to post those things to the forum, that is up to them. It is their personal information and their lives, and thus it is not mine to share with the general public.
I don't care what aspersions or suspicions people sling at me for not posting those things in public view, and not just because doing that would actually be a violation of the forum rules unto itself, but because that people would even ask for that sort of thing is just... kinda picking my jaw off the floor that anyone feels entitled to demand everything be placed on public view when that 'everything' is someone else's personal life information, especially for any sort of forum matter. If that's what someone requires for me to 'justify myself' to them, I am happy for them to consider me whatever breed of villain they wish in perpetuity.
My issue with Christianity is much of what @Ghost describes, re: forcing the rest of the world to conform to Christianity's tenets.
Your religion, whatever it is, has rules. They are extra rules you chose when you chose your religion, or chose to remain with the religion you were raised with. They are extra, they are yours, they are your responsibility to adhere to. They are not the obligation of the remainder of society to adhere to along with you if they have made different choices; they have their own extra rules to worry about.
I can empathize with wanting society to make that easier by not providing for or allowing things that are not permitted by (generic) your religion, but that is not society's responsibility: it is (generic) yours as a practitioner of that faith.
@paris I am hoping so. I know I will certainly be doing my best to be vigilant in that regard.
The great whopping 'fuck you' with two birds flying re: ideological purity tests that are so gallingly common in political life in the US right now are one of the reasons I'm registered Independent and am very comfortable there.
<insert 'stereotypical libra' joke that functions on multiple levels here>