@Ganymede Yeah, I did, actually, ask for clarification. Specifically to try to determine where the disconnect here is coming from.
Because I'm seeing none of this 'hostility toward education' or 'vitriol'/etc. that's being claimed, just a lot of histrionic talk that slings around a lot of insult in the process, which is less than helpful.
@Ganymede Thus far, she's effectively communicated that she's reading a great many things that have not been said, without any translation re: where she's getting it from.
I'm not inclined to play psychic.
@Lithium said:
Gods above and below... I have never in my life seen so much vitriol against education in my life. It's like people are content to swim in the muck with the bottom feeders throwing feces and make believe instead of just have a discussion.
Statements like this are, I suspect, where what you may be attempting to communicate is failing miserably.
I'm quite educated on this subject, thank you very much, and encourage others to educate themselves as well if they have an interest in exploring these subjects in the real world. (Which essentially makes me just want to tell you to go fuck yourself, but that's not what I'm doing.)
People roleplaying something, and players consciously engaging in RL exchanges around a theme are not the same thing, and no amount of 'but it all centers around <theme>' is going to make them the same. Many themes can and do entail similar visceral or emotional reactions from players in the same way, from wanting to have a child to rape scenarios to simple lovey-dovey dating fluff. (And yes, I have actually run across a player on a game who wanted nothing more than to find a girlfriend there with which he could have a child -- these things happen.)
@Lithium That's about 'choosing to roleplay something' in this context, though -- and us not micro-policing their roleplay choices. Not 'it's entirely on them to protect themselves from my mind games and deliberate emotional personal player-level exploitation', which was Sovereign's angle.
@Ganymede It isn't unreasonable, but I see it as no different or more dangerous than people pretending to be a doctor, as per the example we see in media all the time that was used before. If some random guy tries that in the flesh, it's probably not going to go well.
We sometimes rail about these portrayals, too, but somehow, we seem to understand it isn't a crisis waiting to happen in the same way.
@Lithium I don't disagree that it's a possibility, so I'll ask you to quote what you're getting that impression from -- as right now you're arguing against something I've not said. People in this community have gotten married, which is well known on the boards here, after all.
Thing is, there's a possibility that someone may think dragons are out there. Or that they can drink blood and gain supernatural powers. People in the really real world think you can cure AIDS by having sex with a virgin -- people genuinely believe some impressively stupid things and take action based on those beliefs every day.
There is literally nothing out there this does not apply to in some fashion if you slide far enough down the slippery slope.
"Someone might" is not reasonable cause to insist "anyone who does anything to inspire someone to maybe someday" on any of these subjects.
There are also a lot of assumptions going on here about what people know, and what people don't. The glaring horror shows of doing it wrong are going to stand out for obvious reasons, but they do that in any given subject area. I've run across quite a few knowledgeable people in this hobby in this particular subject; they just tend not to advertise. They don't hide it, but they don't throw up the neon sign, either, and as a result, they're quite easy to miss.
Sovereign was not looking for characters to interact with his character. He was, explicitly stated, looking for players to exploit. That was his intention. There was no slope, no 'maybe feels may evolve', that was the deliberate intent behind being there in the first place. The difference is pretty huge.
It'd be pretty easy to kill somebody by doing the emergency drinking straw tracheotomy(sp?) we've seen in dozens of movies and TV shows, too, but there's no outcry about the depiction of it in media -- unlike there sometimes is about horror and kink or sex. (And that has the additional downside of being considered 'heroic' and 'helpful', too, thus potentially inclining an even greater number of people to potentially try it.)
It is important to remember that Soveriegn is an outlier -- and an outlier by a considerable margin. The comparisons that have been cropping up are as unhelpful as they are a bit ridiculous. Calling him our localized Hitler wouldn't be too far off base, though I'm loathe to do so because it's entertainingly likely he'd be immensely flattered by the comparison and insist that it means he's just that charismatic. 
People who post seeking this kind of RP (from either end) are not looking for RL partners to try this out with. That's where the critical difference lies here: Sovereign was, even if it was presumably limited to online interactions, which it may or may not have been; this is very different from 'fictional people do good/bad/neutral things that may or may not reflect reality'. Whatever 'people take things to heart' or 'people get attached' may go on in the course of play, very few players lose cognizance of the simple fact that: this is role-play and it is not real, even if it stirs some real feels along the way at some point.
@Lithium said:
As for why more people might proclaim to be sub more than dom, it's because people are lazy and they can't be assed to come up with stuff themselves, and they don't understand that it's the sub who truly controls how far things go and instead just want masturbatory RP.
Pretty much this; there's a lot of claiming the label without understanding that it means something other than they assume it to mean in some cases, and this is super prevalent on Shang (as one might expect). This sort is the type that generally has their mind completely blown when they find out about the more high-powered-in-normal-life submissives seeking a safe outlet to not have to be that 24/7. 
Though, as a result, I wouldn't really consider this type actually submissive -- they're just lazy and looking for a more enticing term that might lure in play partners. I don't call this type submissive, I call them passive.
@mietze Re: Harems, I don't see them as either inherently dom/sub, either. People sling that label around a lot to any character with multiple sex partners, so it could be directed at some random flaky free-love hippie type who has a dozen friends-with-benefits that they don't exert any control over whatsoever as easily as it could for the character that has a stable of devoted-to-them-only love slaves scampering around in their skivvies all the time. People tend to see a list of names and jump to a whole lot of conclusions.
I have to agree with @Roz on this one.
Digital space is not consequence-free space. People often have a bad habit of treating it as such simply because the consequences of their behavior are not often delivered on them personally or directly, and are instead shoved off to be someone else's problem.
People who behave this way understandably start to be considered the problem themselves after they've caused enough problems for others, which is the eventual actual consequence for them personally.
I've seen a reasonably close balance, though I think @Groth is dead on about dominant personalities advertising more, and stumbling over the submissive sort more often.
The post variance is somewhat self-explanatory when you give it a moment's thought, but only if you're taking a slightly more detached view and including the way these personality traits tend to express themselves in a less sexual context. (As no matter how much TS there is in the hobby, a lot of players are still somewhat private about these things, obviously.)
I think it is a little more balanced than people give it credit for, but that's because switches are also a thing, and how any given switch is perceived often comes down to whatever crazy conversational chemistry is going on.
@Coin Custodius and Jeurg are, alas, different assholes.
(As much as I sincerely wish we could consolidate at least one nightmare out of existence.)
@Arkandel A number of people I've encountered forget the 'other people on the other side of the internet connection' factor somewhat regularly.
I've noticed it more over the past decade than in previous years. I don't know if it's the prevalence of MMOs, or what -- but the instances of 'treating other players like game sprites rather than people' seems to have grown compared to when I started out.
Ghostwheel MOO, 1996. The best friend of the guy I still live with played there, and decided I needed a hobby to escape my workaholic tendencies.
<looks around at what kind of things she's doing now> Fffffuuuu...
@lordbelh I honestly dunno. I got chatty as fuck recently which changed it up some, too, so if being mentioned or tagged adds to it -- that might be a lot of why.
I actually like pre-metaplot oWoD in terms of flexibility. (Have I mentioned yet today that I miss the Tzimisce? Yes? Well, then I haven't mentioned it enough times today yet.)
Metaplot is something I have always felt is best left to individual campaigns, and I always have felt limited by it, or imposed on by it, if it's being handed down by the game company. If it's super open, that's one thing -- but it still feels more like tinkering around in someone else's sandbox than I care for. It just rubs me wrong on some level. I know it's possible to ignore it, but something about it always feels like playing around in someone's pet storyline from on high, and the world of the game becomes somehow smaller for it the more the core materials are tailored to the specifics of that metaplot.
I like metaplot in individual games and campaigns. Even in core materials, 'here is this sub-setting' or 'here is this chronicle (o/nWoD)' or 'here is this campaign (D&D) world' have a different feel and don't nag at me in quite the same way, or feel as much like my characters are suddenly the supporting cast for the game developers' head-novel.
SJG is pretty much the exception that proves the rule in regard to clamping down on M*s. They're very aggressive in the protection of their intellectual property.
@Groth said:
Very few of the MUSH games we run are legal, I would not rate concerns over copyright licensing very highly when it comes to reasons we don't run GURPS.
I would. Steve Jackson Games is extraordinarily litigious. They make more or less any other company out there look like rank amateurs at this.
@Rainbow-Unicorn said:
I remember hearing a lot about Nightscape. What was it like?
It was pretty good, actually. Original theme and system horror/urban fantasy, set in a somewhat different post-apocalyptic setting. It was 'post-angel/demon war on earth' rather than post-nuclear war, and both the offspring of demons and lingering angels that couldn't get back home once heaven essentially closed the gates and said, "NOPE, that place is just all kinds of fucked, time to bunker down a while," were among the character types. There were also shapeshifters and mutants (which were more like classic psychics/psionics).
It was pretty cool, really.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
Part of me wants to work on an Angels / Demons game again. Or maybe a game based off of Nalini Singh's GuildHunter series. Look, I just want to play a winged-human (capable of flight). :x
I might be able to track down some of the folks who worked on Nightscape way back when. Angels/kami were a character class. It wasn't the most balanced game in the world but it was fun as hell. Fairly simple system, and genuinely interesting setting and character classes. Was original, so I'd need to track down the creator and ask her about it -- but may be able to do so if it seems worth it. It wouldn't be a ton of effort to make it work in these days of wiki-world in terms of all the docs and whatnot, and I probably still have the notes I did for their psychics and kami for the followup game that opened when Nightscape was planning to close... somewhere. (Hopefully.)