Posts made by surreality

I see the scammers as a completely legitimate place to vent any relevant aggression. That's not 'right', but I frankly don't care.

I can probably link a fair measure of my testiness in recent months to the fact that I probably actually managed to get them to stop calling.

I was in the middle of a video call with a former friend on hangouts once when they called, and he got to listen to the fireworks. I am still glad he was on my headphones, because I'm pretty sure they would have heard him cracking the fuck up. That time, it was some poor asshole just reading off the script and probably didn't have the best grasp on English, and they referred to me as 'Sir', which led to an instant snap to, "Do I sound like a motherfucking 'Sir' to you?" and it only went downhill from there. I was watching the video screen thumbnail as the guy I was talking to was turning deeper shades of purple as he was laughing his ass off and tears streamed down his face.

(So yes, I can make a grown man cry, it's just not how most people would expect.)

@Insomnia said in RL Anger:

Yeah, I know. just... grr.

I can always tell when it's a scam too, because if someone for me they ask for Firstname, or Firstname Last name. If it's a scammer they always call for Mrs. Lastname. Makes it easier to troll them. But not even 9am.

These fuckers used to call here several times a day (for weeks and weeks and weeks), starting before 8am.

I used them for improv practice.

It is fun wasting their time and coming up with ways to do it.

If I was lazy, it was, "We're mac users, asshole," after letting them run through their schtick. (We actually are, no one has used a computer running Windows in this house for well over a decade now.) This, and, "Oh, hi, scammers! Nice to hear from you the third time today, how was lunch?" were reserved for 'I'm doing something else and can't be bothered'.

If it was an idle moment, however, they were more or less fucked to be stuck on the line for several minutes while some imaginary drama played out in the house, generally along one of the following lines:

"We don't have internet, the restraining order doesn't allow us to have a computer in the house since the incident, I need to look into this right now!"

"OMG THAT SON OF A BITCH PROMISED ME HE'D STOP GOING ONLINE TO PICK UP CHEAP FLOOZIES I AM GONNA... " <drop phone, muffle voice to sound like I'm in another room yelling wildly at someone>

"We don't use computers here, it's against our religious beliefs. Have you been brought into the light?"

...and so on.

Thing is, they were incredibly dumb as their caller ID showed the same fake name every time when they'd call here, so I was able to prepare before I even picked up the phone. Often, I simply didn't bother picking up, but it did open the door to what finally got them to stop calling, period, because I was prepared:

"Hello, thank you for calling Microsoft Headquarters Wilmington, how may I direct your call?"

They haven't called back since, and it's been several months now.

@Cupcake Damn. You mean I may have been picking up a pile of his tracts from a favorite stop on the road trip from hell while he was actually dying?!

...I take zero responsibility for this shit.

Can help, but still out of town and useless until Monday at the earliest. (In novice finger typing land until then.)

Dear tablet: I know, it it not really the intent that some enters their passcode with their toes. But, y'know, I apparently have monkey feet and I am lazy.

Learn to respect the monkey feet + lazy thing, technology. At least for the dang passcode.

I cannot promise I would never type a quick reply to something that way, which I know is a perversion of all that is right with the world, but come on, now. Not even the passcode? The keys are big enough!

@Ominous said in Leadership, Spotlight, and PCs of Staffers:

That makes staffing sound like a chore. I much prefer DMing D&D than playing it. I get a lot of joy from drawing maps, creating new cultures and lands, watching my players puzzle things out, develop clever solution, etc. Is staffing a MU* different from this, other than the obvious coding?

Very much so.

Just as a general note, there's still a couple of things in here that I haven't answered yet -- but did notice and am thinking about. (The 'underdogs' one in particular; that's a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnng answer with a bunch of stuff I think is worth the time to give in full, a lot of it open-ended enough that there's some input very desired there, and time's been super limited because...)

...we're heading out for a 24 hour drive in a little while to the (oh so fucking needed omg) yearly vacation. I have no laptop, so, uh. While I may be able to check in from the tablet, my finger-typing-fu is the ultimate in weaksauce. (No, really, I just got my first mobile phone on Friday, y'all, this is going to be funny as fuck, feel laugh at me and know you are laughing with me here at the same time. ) So please don't think I'm ignoring questions or concerns -- I'm just way less connected than usual for the next two weeks.

@GangOfDolls <can't breathe> Oh dear god in heaven... that is amazing.

@lordbelh Ditto that. I am a non-fan of hoop-jumping.

Some people really enjoy writing these or incorporating them, though, even when they're not required, because they like exploring/firming up/detailing that aspect of whatever it was their character learned/acquired.

While not the same thing as a required justification... it's still technically a gain.

If somebody was going to run a scene like this for themselves, well... fuck, I see zero reason to ever disallow that, especially if it's 'I could totally skip this part and spend the points I'm going to spend anyway, I just think the RP of it could give me and a few buddies something to do that we'd find fun' as the only difference.

I'm keen on the basic rule being more along the line of some of the limits mentioned throughout the thread -- major plots, no; pick-up scenes where everyone consents to it OOC, sure why not; personal plots labeled as such, run it by staff for approval involves some kind of gain and make sure anyone participating knows what's what going in.

Clarification on the last one there: this is more for what I'd think of for the kind of scene some games require to buy X or Y stat. I do not really care if the player wants to run through this themselves if they have a specific means that's legit to acquire the thing, rather than leaving it up to the random chance of 'whatever the ST comes up with'. Granted, I also believe that players should be allowed to use cutscenes (on a bb or wiki) for this kind of 'justification' PrP/etc. for something they are going to be paying XP for anyway. Since those scenes -- be they prose or interactive RP with or without an external ST involved -- generally have to be reviewed (and would have to be in such a case) before they're approved as qualifying for whatever it is, there's a means of catching any problems there that's easily built-in as standard, but it also makes progression a little easier and lighter on workload while giving players more options for means of pursuing their personal stories.

@Miss-Demeanor said in Leadership, Spotlight, and PCs of Staffers:

C. People are already staffing under the inability to have their PC in scenes that they're running. People are already playing under the inability to have their PC in scenes they're running. We're not losing anything by continuing to disallow it, and I seriously doubt we would be gaining enough by allowing it that would be worth the bullshit that would have to be dealt with.

Except this isn't a universal constant. Yes, some places have this rule and people follow it -- but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the only set of conditions under which any given game is run or could be run, or that it's necessarily the ideal.

@Kanye-Qwest Oh, I'm not pissy or anything -- I just think it's worthwhile to lay out the thought process behind that, since it really is a deliberate choice.

While I grok that it's possible to read as hostile, I do believe this is in part because most people just don't write files in the same tone in which people typically talk around a gaming table.

To me, that's unfortunate, because it sets up false expectations, instead of reinforcing the simple fact that, top to bottom, every single bit of what's going on there is people interacting with people.

@Quibbler Danke. Is it showing up as tucked under the letters beneath it (with a shadow effect to help unmuddle it for legibility), or is it actively clipping it off (hard edge and the bottom of the letter is actually gone)?

Edit: I test in chrome, but I'm also on a mac and we're in a mac-only household -- so often what I see isn't necessarily what someone else is going to be seeing. We had some serious weirdness in firefox that needed workarounds, so I'm very ears-open to any of these issues as they appear, so they can ideally get handled before stuff goes properly live.

Though a lot of what's there is what I'd consider 'straight blunt plain talk', more thought went into going that route than might be expected.

It's worth noting at the outset: I don't expect everyone will agree with the conclusions I have come to about it, or the choices I've made because of them, but I will lay that out here.

I went with: "This is how people talk around every gaming table I've ever been sitting at amongst themselves since the 80s, and amongst ourselves at every LARP team I was involved in from in the 90s."

Mostly: talk like people from square one. Set up the expectation that people are going to talk like people in this space. Not like abusive jackasses. Not like humorless robots. Not like customer service asskissers. Like people.

This means that when people talk like people on the game, nobody's suddenly shocked. Nobody is surprised when someone cracks a joke or has to wonder if, 'hey, they cracked a joke, are they making fun of me?'. No one is surprised when someone uses profanity, and thinks this automatically implies hostility or anger. No one has to wonder if there's some extra special meaning, or personal bias, or implied cruelty, or preferential treatment, if someone says, "I love that!" or, "That's shitty, let me see what I can do."

Because people have and do talk like this, and if the expectation has not been established that, yes, people are going to talk like this, the contrast between robotic polite nebulous hard data and normal human interaction with other humans becomes a needlessly uncomfortable question mark that people will read things into to everyone's collective detriment over time.

There is a genuine need for nebulous areas where something either isn't covered already and is a new issue, or is a judgment call. I am not someone who subscribes to the notion of 'don't be a dick' covering all the bases. Some of the reasoning is above, but there's a bigger part of it, too: without at least some foundations of what those behaviors entail, you have three potential problems:

1. Every instance of dickery needs to be a committee discussion before action is taken, at least to some extent. This delays solutions and allows problems to linger. It also leads to less consistency, which is a problem unto itself.

2. Players have less understanding of what they should rightly be bringing to staff attention in the first place. Considering some of the things we do get complaints about that are not actionable and are not dickery -- there's stuff on that, too in there -- it's important for that frame of reference to exist.

3. The more nebulous the policy, the more arbitrary its enforcement is going to appear, and sometimes, actually be. Both of these are big problems in ways that are pretty self-evident.

I would rather lay shit out up front than spend my time arguing every call someone on staff makes re: 'don't be a dick' here because someone doesn't think they were properly informed about what that actually means, or that it was simply arbitrary, or it was unfair because they didn't realize we thought that was dickish and so on. That's such a waste of time and energy, and is quite toxic in its own right.

@Kanye-Qwest That's my feeling about it, too.

Now, there is a difference here between 'initial staff that built the place' and 'people brought into staff that were players first', which I could see argued. But that, to me, seems to be a difficult distinction to make specific rules about.

@Miss-Demeanor There are a few more that need to go in -- the barging one above is one that I've been fighting with the wording/examples/explanations about so it's not there yet -- but I'm really trying to go over the basics as briefly as possible without losing clarity, and then providing examples if it's something that people might not instantly be able to understand without them.

For instance, I wouldn't expect somebody to know what I mean by the phrase 'bashing by proxy' without those examples. And it's something I've seen people do a lot of, thinking it's harmless and tee hee funny that's never against the rules and I can get away with it! when really, it's hugely problematic since it's sucking a pile of folks who probably have no idea what's happening into the drama (with which they likely want no part). It's amazing how something that 'tee hee ha ha it isn't against any rules!' can factionalize a whole game without 90% of the participants involved in that battle royale having a dang clue how or why it actually started or why people are being so hostile all of a sudden. (And then everybody reacts in kind, it snowballs, and... bleah.)

@mietze and @VulgarKitten get credit for the 'no slut shaming' going into the mix; especially with the bit about that applying to both sides of the 'do they or don't they' coin and how people behave in regard to it, for instance, as it's ultimately the same thing and it's simply uncool.

@deadculture said in Historical Mu* - Looking for interested Staff:

@Lotherio Trust me, Lions of al-Rassan is everything you need, bundled in a setting. It's a great read, too. Has all the romantic parts you want to put in a MU loosely based on upon the Reconquista.

Seconding this. This book holds a special place in my heart for many reasons. It was the first of Kay's books I read, and any time something is 'the first of', you know it had to be good. (The other bit is such a wild and crazy tangent it'd scramble brains, so I'll refrain. <snerk>)

@Gilette said in Leadership, Spotlight, and PCs of Staffers:

@Miss-Demeanor

This is precisely my thought about the difficulty of running scenes sometimes. I'm controlling the NPCs, I really shouldn't have my PC get too involved.

Here's the thing; this isn't 'too involved', this is 'involved at all' -- and the two really are functionally different, and it's a difference that comes up a lot.

This difference eliminates a lot of the examples that have come up in the thread that are pretty helpful -- for instance, having a PC run in to say, "OH MY GOD, SPACE MONKEYS ARE ATTACKING!" and then go hide under the bed. No, maybe that doesn't need to be your PC, and could be an NPC, but when it's a PC the other characters know, there are tangible benefits: they're more likely to care and get involved, and not wonder who that crazy stranger is now hiding in their bedroom... 99% of the time, this is going to be totally harmless use of 'PC is in the scene', because you're right -- their involvement is extremely limited, and, further, it serves to give other people something to do, not something to do themselves, or starring them, etc.

I'm sure there could be a corner case example of someone Doing Bad Things with a scenario like this, but that would be a corner case of what's already a corner case.

It is the difference between 'extremely limited involvement' and 'no involvement', though. For a lot of folks, they are very much not the same, and any hint of presence -- or even mention, like 'somebody should call PC to let them know why our house is a mess, it got invaded by space monkeys once we're done with this fight!' -- would be a gross violation of CoI.

@mietze said in Feedback request, round #1:

"wow, it really is okay if I forward that mail or submit that log to staff because they care about if someone is doing those things."

Yup, very much this.

I'm also trying to show, in the examples, why the dickish behavior is harmful, usually to more than just the direct target of the person being a dick, and creates an increasingly toxic game environment. I don't know how often or well I'm succeeding in that, but especially for the folks who don't realize why something that seems like a minor slight at best or don't think it's harmful actually can be.

What's especially unfortunate about this is that when somebody new -- or from a different style of game -- stumbles into one of these, and really doesn't get it, they're suddenly subject to a ton of screeching backlash and not only do they not know why, but they think we're a giant pile of complete loons.

For instance, a number of games have lock mechanisms with lockpick setups and so on that would allow someone to enter a private home with only the code as oversight; someone accustomed to that in the games they're playing may not think twice about walking right into someone's private scene in their private home, which is something generally frowned upon on a MUSH or MUX. That is completely acceptable on games similar enough to ours that innocent confusion on the part of a new player is very likely. Since the players on the game don't necessarily know the new player really is new to this style of game, there's a recipe for screeching and drama and explosions here that is totally avoidable, along with the hard feelings on all sides that it generates, which have potential to linger on long past the initial conflict and sour people's play experience down the line.

While it's not possible to stave all of that off, trying to be aware of as many of our 'unspoken rules' and actually speaking them aloud, well -- it's spammy as hell. But it's something I genuinely feel is worth the time, for both the old guard, and the new arrivals, because they're not always intuitive unless someone is already familiar with the typical community on a MUSH or MUX, which not everyone is. It's a huge hurdle for new folks, and one that isn't entirely fair. It's not a case of people being jerks to each other in any way, or any bad intentions at all -- it's one of those genuinely innocent misunderstandings that (the collective) we can probably avoid better than we sometimes do.

There's actually an intro for the policy page that seems to have gone the way of the dodo somewhere along the line that went into that (oops!) but it's covered pretty well in the 'community' section. It's probably worth popping that back up to the top, I think.

@Quibbler Which browser are you using? I know some of the lower trailing letter bits overlap, but ideally they shouldn't be clipping, so I'd like to check that out. (The lower margin on that font is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge, so it was a gapfest of scrolling hell otherwise.)

@GangOfDolls Those are VERY good. Thank you. Definitely will look at adding some guidelines and such about this.

There will be some more detailed NPC guidelines coming in general; mostly, 'don't use an NPC to be a dick to someone and think this is in a zone free of consequences' kinds of things.

@Tempest The consent policy needs the detail, because it's a new implementation of a consent policy. Without explaining it, there is no frame of reference for people to say, 'oh, it works like X!' because there's no X like it out currently there, nor has there been previously. Consent is not in any way part of 'don't be a dick'; the game has a consent policy. Consent is consent. It is its own thing.

Personally, I feel the dickery stuff needs to be there, too, as many people have observed, what 'don't be a dick' means varies dramatically from person to person, so I'm afraid I'm not gonna skip that. Plenty of people believe every single thing outlined there is perfectly acceptable behavior. More importantly, though, people new to the hobby may genuinely not realize these things are bad form, and deserve the warning before getting backhanded off the MUX for not adhering to a cultural standard they may not have encountered before or realize is dickish behavior, which is ultimately unfair to them.