Posts made by surreality

@bored said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

Comics are weird.

...and clearly not subject to encumbrance rules. It's... I am in gawping awe of that image.

Am willing to just say 'you know what, fuck all that, let's just not stress it, because it isn't worth anybody's angst further' with two quick notes:

1. Dangit, you're supposed to lean on us for that kind of thing, that's what we're here for. Even when mad, a fuck is actually given.

2. Way less important, but still relevant: just so you know, whatever it was that went down on the game, I didn't even know until the post went up. Not kidding about that. I was not involved and thankfully TD was smart enough to keep me uninvolved, which I also appreciate. I had no clue until I asked if I was the 'campy' one. So that did not come from me -- and I wouldn't have done that.

I'm still absorbing this, so will likely try to talk to you privately later.

That said: anybody who gets the sadly typical MSB urge to quibble about the form of an apology or whatever, I will quite happily textually slap upside the head with the equivalent a giant mallet studded with nails.

@Ghost said in GMs: Typical Player/GM Bad Habits:

But then again I've dropped OUT of PrPs because another player I knew needed the scene more than me. I'd like to see more of that, too. Maybe ask "hey this person didn't sign up in time, but the PrP is currently important to their stuff. Anyone keen to give up their seat?"

I've done this, too. If I was GMing something like this and saw this happen, were it in my power to do so, I'd probably toss that player a small XP thing for good-sport-ness.

@Roz said in Dealing with bad actors:

this post

What a charmer. o.o

@Roz That makes a bit more sense, then. The only Shadow I knew of before that was @Coin, and he would never do shit like that.

Top to bottom, WTF is happening here?

@Auspice At least, in the case of socks, while you only have the one made, no one will so much as doubt: 'clearly, the drier ate the other one'.

@Auspice That is some gorgeous yarn, too, and yeah, it definitely looks like it's coming along great!

• walk into them on the street, obliviously lost in your phone (or be just about to)

• also tropey and cliche, but it still works: 'I think I'm being followed, pretend I know you?'

• rather than sitting in the corner buried in a sketch that is so fascinating, look up from that awful sketch you were doing, grumble, rip it out, crumple it up, and toss it across the room (similar applies to 'slamming the laptop shut on writing just at that moment', etc. -- make it obvious the character is craving a distraction, vs. not wanting one)

Getting to play with someone I had a complete blast with ages ago (and haven't had a chance to catch on a game in over a decade), and sitting up wayyyyyyyyyyyy too late cracking each other up with random backstory ideas that somehow click too perfectly.

I missed, "I am giggling so much in this brainstorming session that I have laugh-tears" a lot more than I realized.

The simple difference is that social dice are about the story, and the x-card is about the people engaged in creating it.

One thing controls what happens to fictional people.

The other controls what happens to real people.

'OMG, control mechanisms!' applies to both, and reasonable people can reasonably embrace or reject either/or/both in part or in full on a personal philosophical level. That is where the similarity begins and ends.

I know I was looking at a general RP-prefs setup on-wiki. It wasn't meant just for 'I hate this, don't go there', but with general categories where people could write whatever was relevant to them on any given subject. (Subjects were fairly broad and would have been customizable for any given setting -- ex: 'law enforcement', 'crime', 'romance', 'horror', etc.)

Not only could people list their 'nope's, they could list what they were looking for on lists that could be sorted and scanned by anyone on the game. As in, if you were inclined to run a horror scene, you could check what active players were interested in re: horror as a general subject, or if anyone on the game was interested in horror at all. I looked at it from the perspective of, 'What would I find useful info as an ST trying to develop a plot that would engage people based on what folks are actually interested in doing with who is here on the game these days?'

It was a casual, no-need-to-interrupt on general subjects per player, too, which can be handy. It's also easy to mark things off as 'talk to me OOC about <subject/content> first' to avoid including any details that might be identifying or potentially embarrassing to the player to list openly.

(Sooner or later, I'll use it. Eventually.)

@Ghost I'm going to have to give this whole premise a solid no.

It isn't that I don't see what you're getting at. I do.

The problem is that you're conflating things that are not the same. This is not apples to apples, it's more like apples to rabbit stew.

Yes, for the MU community, something designed for tabletop games among strangers at cons is not going to work without some sort of adaptation. This is not news. Why does everyone keep acting like this is news?

People discussing the ways this could reasonably apply to a MU setting are not talking about using whatever this specific system is, as written. People are discussing means of avoiding content that is legitimately problematic for players, not their characters, and tools or processes that may facilitate this, none of which are 'that system, precisely as written' at this point.

So maybe just leave that behind now; it's got a fork in it as originally written, and is done.

@Pandora It was over 30 years ago, now, for I am ye olden hag, but still. It's one of those things that having it just hop up in my face isn't super fun.

People getting casually nosy about the limit or preference setting is as much an issue as it coming up in RP, really. I have no issue talking about it when I'm prepared to talk about it, but that's because I've consciously chosen to bring it up. I'm all sleep-deprived and spacey-mellow at the moment, for instance -- no big deal to mention. If it was one of the 'I have had to take painkillers, errybody duck and cover' sort of days, uh, I would not be bringing it up, not being in the headspace to talk about it.

And much as I do love people in this hobby -- I do, really, in spite of my grumpiness -- we are some nosy fuckers, sometimes. It's the sort of thing that may not be obvious as a 'triggery hard limit please don't drop this in my face' vs. 'that is just not my favorite flavor of kink', considering the specifics. I've had casual, interesting, fun, and weird conversations with all manner of folks over the years about the stuff they like, don't like, and so on, purely around preferences not based in anything involving any kind of trauma/etc. that are genuinely enlightening on the whole 'I never realized why someone would like <thing>, huh, that makes sense now, even if I'm still not into it myself!' I wouldn't want to discourage that kind of conversation, either, since I think they can be productive re: reducing the whole 'that person likes a thing I don't, they must eat live kittens!!!' issues that are also prevalent (though, pleasantly, less so than they once were), but it definitely complicates matters.

Not remotely cool in anyone's ad thread, y'all. Not even a little bit.

ETA: TY, Ark.

@Pandora said in X-Cards:

I invite anyone with a particularly hard-line trigger (not someone that knows someone with a trigger, first-hand experience only please) that is willing to discuss it here or privately, to explain to me why it'd be better for them to leave a scene-in-progress - thereby inviting speculation or requests for explanation at that time, than to avoid the matter from the start.

First, I don't disagree with you. Not even in the smallest way.

I have one 'do not ever, ever, ever go there' trigger for RP. It's obscure, but not super obscure, and it has come up.

I mention it when it does, and say I'm going to need to work around that one: I'm posing out, or they're reposing.

It's hit or miss if I mention it on a wiki or otherwise. On Shang, when I would RP there, I had it listed. On a not-for-smut-purposes game, I may or may not, unless smut or combat comes up, in which case I will pre-advise if things seem to be going in that direction.

The hard line? Choking/strangling. No. Just no. Sorry-not-sorry, no. (Not exactly a fringe kink, but definitely more fringe outside of kink to the extent that I've never had it come up or threaten to come up in 20+ years outside of that context.)

Some reasons I am, admittedly, sometimes reluctant to plaster this everywhere:

• Rarely relevant.

• Fairly specific; I have never actually seen anyone else in the hobby with this as a hard limit, therefore this could be making my characters known even if I don't wish to do so. I would not list this anywhere now because of the person who chases me around, for instance, as they are aware of it.

• All the motherfuckers who want to be 'an exception to prove it can be fun'. No, you jerk. NO. It is not going to be fun for me, full stop.

• All the people who feel they are entitled to the explanation of why, just because they see 'I do not want this happening to my character IC, period'. Why is not a secret: someone tried to strangle me to death in my teens and almost succeeded in killing me. That is automatically not fun. Do I care who knows this? Nope. That isn't the problem. It's not a secret. You know what I don't want, though? Someone's idle fucking curiosity derailing my day by asking me 'why?' like some doe-eyed child who never planned to bring it up in RP/a scene anyway, thus calling said incident to mind uninvited no less than it would have if it came up in a scene.

• People who assume it's the same as saying 'nothing bad can happen to my PC!' No, it's not. Not in the least. Stab them, behead them, explode them, turn them to stone, drop them off a cliff, shoot them, strap them to a cliff like Prometheus to have an angry bird eat their liver on the daily, whatever, just not that one thing. To others around my character? Whatevs.

So there are, actually, some reasons, and I understand them, even if I agree with the general premise here.

ETA: Obviously, there are also the shitlords who will see that and go out of their way to incorporate it in play, and attempt to force it into play repeatedly, to get their jollies by upsetting someone RL. The answer re: dealing with that sort is painfully obvious, however: if staff won't ban for that kind of RL-targeted aggro behavior, get the fuck off that game and burn the world setting in your client like a bridge to ne'er deign cross again.

@Ghost

@Arkandel Oh, I agree. I'm just referring to things like 'so if I don't want to have the RP of rape and torture of a small child, as it is something that ostensibly exists in the modern day real world, I shouldn't play on a modern day real world game?' getting a solid majority 'yes' answer.

I am weirdly happy to see the idea of the tags being discussed as a positive option. I remember bringing it up a few years ago to a much more negative response and a lot on 'spoiling the plot surprises' and/or 'if you can't handle <literally any example, no matter how extreme> and it could theoretically happen on the game at all, you shouldn't play that game'.

That? Tells me we're, collectively, doing pretty good, even if we still, also collectively, have room to do better.

@Auspice Out of evens to cant with.

BUT IF WE ARE GOING TO GO THERE...

...why not just vanish it as it, uh, accumulates, so you're not dropping a log and poofing your poop. Just... depoop your own personal plumbing, somehow, telepoop to an alternate dimension, or, I dunno, have it all compress infinitely until in old age, you plorp out a diamond or something to pay for your funeral.

Like, as far as solutions go, this is like, 1/10 on creative problem solving.