Posts made by surreality

@tangent I never had a MUbaby in a MUmarriage, so not me.

@cupcake That lady? Wow. She inspired quite the inappropriate volley of profanity in my brain. I'm sorry you had to deal with someone so spectacularly shit-tastic.

May karma deliver unto her what she deserves, but spare her dog (who is probably adorable and lovely) from any of the fallout.

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice I find that delivery drivers can never, ever find where I live regardless of directions.

My address is literally: 1 <very common four letter name for any street, apartment complex, public location, etc.> Lane.

It is so common that years ago, a friend of mine had a license plate with 1<that name> as their vanity plate, as it was the name of their company, from a completely different state.

There is another 1-8 <four letter street with a slightly less common name for a street but a common name for a person> in our zip code.

We get each other's mail all the time.

There is a very real reason I use my parents' address as my home address for all mail and deliveries instead. (They live next door, but I'm on a corner; they face the cross-street that is more rare in name and has sane, 3-digit numbering.)

It is easier to walk next door to pick up my bills than yell at the post office and wait on hold for hours.

My husband? Sends everything here.
All of his shit shows up just fine.
Mine?
Nope.
Nope never ever.

It seriously amused the judge who had to deal with our marriage licenses when we explained all of this, and how, yes, we actually do live together, for reals! ...but I can't ever change my address to my actual address because the post office hates me.

When I told him the actual address, he threw up his hands and said, "Sweet tears of baby Jesus, it is a miracle you get any mail at all!" to my husband(-then-to-be).

Needless to say, this was possibly the one time in our collective lives that bureaucrazy totally understood and was not going to give us any shit. Because our address is so fucking ridiculous people accuse me of making it up all the time even when I name the goddamned street.

@three-eyed-crow I actually agree with this completely -- it's just more that this person seems to want something that is more in line with the style of game that... dang, what was that other forum Jeshin kept promoting here while dogging MUSHes in exactly the same way, re: 'they are WRONG for not having these things all the time'? They seem to be looking for something more in line with those criteria, rather than the shared story world approach that is more common to the games discussed here. That not all games have the things they want does not make those games wrong, bad, or failures, they just make them not what that person wants, and they seem incapable of comprehending this.

@nightshade You just keep telling yourself that. By your metric, Shangrila, PenDes, FurryMUCK, Fallcoast, Arx, and formerly Firan are the best games out there.

Good luck selling that one around here.

@nightshade ...because maybe you're looking for something more like an RPI or a MOO, which is not the MUSH/MUX hobby's fault.

Plenty of people like the things you don't. They are no more wrong to like them than you are to not like them. So stop acting like they are; it's arrogant nonsense.

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Yes, some people. Meanwhile RfK died under the avalanche of interested players. Meanwhile, there's ~400 people on Arx. Let's not wonder why and what the difference might be.

And some people wouldn't touch Arx, or RfK or Firan (while they existed) with a bargepole for the same reasons.

Your experience re: sandbox setups is, bluntly, not the experience I've had on them as a player or staffer in any way. Further, there is absolutely no such 'general agreement' that games should (or should not) have metaplots.

So, uh, maybe try to avoid spouting out 'fuck your absolute authority' while acting like you have it to speak from yourself when so much of what's coming out of your mouth is so easily demonstrated to be false.

Protip: it is entirely possible to like what you like without demonizing other things, especially when you're doing so with with demonstrable falsehoods. People tend to take you a bit more seriously then, too.

@ominous said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

The popularity of Minecraft, Subnautica, Day Z, Ark, and Don't Starve contradicts your supposition that players avoid menial tasks.

And none of those games are MU*s. Which is relevant.

@lotherio said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@kanye-qwest said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

doing a secret santa in a fantasy garbage world where everyone is starving.

Ask troops deployed overseas about this; I've been there. Doing this and exchanging MRE bits might give them a sense of normalcy in a world were their buddy could die in a couple of hours. Sure, it might just be an 'hey, its Christmas back home merry christmas, I owe you a present ...' Sure, some of the troops might think its stupid and think the person doing it is stupid, but that one moment of offering a gift when really, you don't have squat to give, is sort of that 'remember how it was before we were in this shit' moments.

This. Since the example provided is zombie apocalypse, look at The Walking Dead. There are examples of this. All of them are pretty potent. There are plenty of very good examples of people desperately trying to cling to normalcy. There are definitely hookups -- and the potentially horrifying consequences of 'what happens if someone gets pregnant in a world like that'.

@ominous said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

I want survival mechanics in my MUs. It was one of the main selling points of Firan for me and why I dabbled in Carrier RPI. Most normal MUs just devolve into BarP time otherwise, and I can do that in real life. Maybe it's a sign I should be RPI-ing it up instead of playing MUSHes.

Possibly. Which is no slight -- if that's what you like, that's where you're going to find it more often. People like me find this burdensome, choresome, and a complete barrier to entry due to limited play time.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Why shouldn't I keep making WoD games until the end of time?

Obligatory: because a lot of WoD doesn't work well without heavy mods from tabletop and allows a lot of things that the anonymity of the internet invites serious abuse of many of its systems in a way that face to face play does not.

Broadly: A lot of MU* players are story-focused. The biggest part of story readily available to people that focuses exclusively on their story is typically going to be social RP, whether it's forming social bonds with people through getting a job, getting drunk and spilling a secret they didn't intend to, or getting laid, etc. All of those things directly focus on and involve that character's story directly and require zero input from anybody but other interested players.

Instead of focusing on giving people things to do other than that, or creating grinds people have to go through to get anywhere, focus on giving them social/downtime options that incentivize focusing those activities -- from the secrets to the screwing -- that are relevant to the setting and themes of the game.

I think the whole 'Luke and Leia' thing is partly why characters on not just the heroic level, but the epic level (which is how I would classify them), are often NPCs on some games.

That keeps everyone in that 'second tier but still impactful and heroic' space.

I've had one happen IC, on Cybersphere back in the 90s. Everything went fine.

I had a character app in with someone as a married couple, and got totally flaked out on.

That's about the long and the short of it in over 20 years for me.

@arkandel said in Spotlight.:

For example should a ghoul have a near equal chance for prominence in a Vampire game, or a sidekick in a superhero MU*?

(I'm going to focus on this line specifically, because time's still a thing.)

I don't entirely see these as the same thing. The first is primarily based on an inherent power disparity. The second is based more on a role/status disparity -- as there are probably plenty of examples out there of 'sidekick' characters being far more powerful than the person they're a sidekick to (the 'small fluffy thing that turns into a doomship of doomness' from an anime I forget the name of off hand comes to mind here) -- and is more in line with a noble/commoner relationship. Status is relevant in the first example within vampire society, but not in society at large, and this is a noteworthy difference, particularly in a game that focuses on a broader world than just vampire politics (any multisphere game, etc.).

I'm going to point at Game of Thrones here. Samwell definitely starts out in 'sidekick' territory at best. What does he do? The same is true of Bronn, The Hound, Hodor, and Podrick. What do they do?

How different would the story be if they all stayed where they began?

All of them have vital roles to play in the story, and all of them have major moments to shine. Not as many, perhaps, as some of the bigger names, but they're good examples of where my brain is on this topic.

@thenomain This is well put.

I am thinking of the times when I have not been OK with this -- because like everybody, there are times I'm not OK with it.

It comes down to one of three scenarios in every case (and the second two are more or less the same thing in different permutations):

1. The other person really does not give the first damn that I not only have no interest in pursuing what they're pushing, but I find it offensive or gross or it would cause me RL problems. (For instance, for a while I was involved with someone who had a 'no TS' rule*; I made this very clear to anyone I played with and you can bet there were people who tried to use dice-rolled force to make this happen, and would increase the 'consequences' dramatically if I suggested FtB. As in, 'would have to be affectionate/constantly gush about how sexy they were/etc.' in ways that still would have caused me extremes of RL drama, and they were aware of this.

2. I spend months building up something to share with folks, and do so. Put tons of work in for everyone's shared benefit. People get cool things out of it, which makes me happy! But then when I have an idea of something I want to do with it, and state as much (since I should get a turn eventually, too, right?) the people involved promptly stomp my face into the pavement to claim it for themselves and to get laid/look shiny/kiss up to a fuckbuddy/etc.

3. I'm perfectly happy to 'not win'. I do still want to be able to come out on top sometimes, even if it's only one time out of ten. If someone simply refuses to allow this after I've given way to them gracefully, without objection or hesitation, and in good faith repeatedly, I am going to be annoyed. Because, as above, hey, I should get a turn eventually, too. I do not exclusively exist to be walked on IC to make somebody else feel big, and this makes me feel like I'm being walked on OOC to make someone else feel big -- because I am.

• Which was fucking stupid, but he was such over the fucking top drama from hell any time he even thought any of my characters were even nice to someone it was a goddamned nightmare. (Dude sent at least a dozen RL texts of 'whore/slut/trash' etc. to me for hugging a friend IC once when he sent a secret alt to spy on this completely public casual interaction as an example.) It was just easier to go along after two years of arguing about it going nowhere, and I was a doormat from hell at the time.

@shincashay Danke. I had about five days before mechanipus went down to scramble something together notice-wise, and then my computer went 'nope!' to finishing it up. (Because of course, right?)

Hopefully it will be properly fleshed out soon, since I should be able to get back to it later this week.

@thatguythere '80s sitcom' accurately describes the past two weeks or so really well. I keep referring to it as 'the comedy of (t)errors'.

I was gonna write it all up for folks to get a chuckle out of, but when it hit fifteen(!!!) paragraph long footnotes, I was like... no. No. 'Losing something important that was put somewhere safe' figures into it no less than five times, more than half of which involve documents.

There's a reason 'a few days to sort out this room to hook up a new computer' became 'I'mma hyper-organize the shit out of this room and much of the crap in it' for two weeks and counting now. (Art studio rooms: full of All The Things Ever; even the shelves have nooks and the nooks have crannies and the crannies are full of tiny compartment boxes of very specific things.)

@kay I have a Do Tall People Things for Me Person husband for the top of the fridge, so I never could have gotten it up there in the first place.

He has the same problem the rest of the family does (I think it might be contagious), so handing something off to him to hide for me would be like saying, "I never want to see this again in our entire lives, I just don't want to throw it away myself."

ETA: If I hand him something to actually throw out or get rid of so we never see it again, it's practically guaranteed I will be tripping over it in the foyer for the next six months to two years.

@tinuviel In the midst of The Great Studio Cleanup, I had all my cards/IDs/etc. in a little ziploc bag.

Following in my mother's footsteps, "I just put it somewhere it would be safe while we're cleaning and moving things around."

When anyone in my family says this, we are not to be fucking trusted, because this actually means, "I put it somewhere totally safe that made flawless sense at the time! It's totally safe now! ...from me ever finding it again within the next five years."

...so now I need to get a new driver's license but I'm not rushing to replace the cards.

@tinuviel Dude, a lot of people could benefit from that kind of credit card processing. Not exempting myself, either...

Dear cold-call and robocall crowd that just can't wait to tell me what a great deal they offer on credit card processing services: fuck all the way off.

I get at least four calls from various idiots of this stripe per day since I have a business.

Apparently, they think 'I have a business == I am the dumbest motherfucker who ever lived', because holy wow, part of running a business is researching that shit oneself and finding out about companies and what they offer, and I can pretty much guarantee the ones that are reputable and credible are not robocalling people off a list.

'Research your needs and assess pros and cons' of any service may not be rule #1 of owning a business, but it's sure as shit in the top 5. This strikes me as a uniquely stupid demographic to target this way as a result, let alone have so many different collections of idiots trying to do it.

"We still have a few medical bills in collections because my husband is an idiot sometimes, I DO NOT PERSONALLY QUALIFY TO ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS PER REGULATIONS ON ACCOUNT OF THIS," does not even stop these fucking morons from calling several times per day. (We just use the family one, because we still have it and ultimately: duh.)

@thenomain The reason I steer away from sportsmanship is that it implies adherence to 'the rules' (including 'avoiding fouls'), and a lot of the worst actions are entirely permissible within the scope of the rules of a game -- but they're shitty things to do to a fellow player that common decency should dictate one does not do.

It's entirely within the rules of most games to be that jerk who kills a newbie for sitting on their favorite barstool over and over and over again, but it's a pretty profoundly crap thing to do to a fellow player. Many players who engage in this behavior trot out the 'the rules say you're dead now, byeeeeeeee!' and accusations of bad sportsmanship on the part of the person they just screwed over if they don't suck it up with a smile, because technically speaking, not adhering to the rules is part of the very definition of bad sportsmanship -- which is also shitty, as it is piling on shaming and abuse, insult added to injury.

I think, essentially, 'more than just following the rules is required of people to make this work' needs to be flagged in some respect, and a proactive 'act in good faith' works nicely for this.

@thenomain said in Make it fun for Me!:

there's no rule against griefing someone else's story. You can't tell me that this isn't the best story; who are you to tell me how to tell stories! (etc. etc.)

This, exactly, is what I mean by 'bad faith'. That's beautifully put.

The tl;dr to me has always been 'act in good faith'. That's essentially my personal translation of 'don't be a dick'. (I would ramble about proactive vs. prohibition on this, but I already invoked tl;dr.)