Posts made by Swaggot

@surreality I think there's a lot of malice that gets attributed to simply saying "I don't like your character idea" to people. I don't blame you for not wanting to do the customer service rep thing on your games, though. It's a game. You're staffing on this shit because it's something you do for fun. These things almost never generate revenue and real profits, so I don't think there's any expectation of impartiality.

That said. I read your links and the only thing I disagree with is the guy with the Nazi hat. I don't think it's really the job of airlines to regulate the content of people's hats or whatever. I'd have a really hard time believing that the FAA is obligated to make sure passengers go unoffended on flights. The guy with the hat could have played the First Amendment card so hard in that context, and been right: "Well, the First Amendment is Constitutional, whereas your FAA regulations are merely statutory." Someone getting butthurt about this guy's stupid hat is not him interfering with the duties of the crew member. In fact, the person bitching about said hat is the one doing the interfering if anybody is, since you don't have a right to not be offended. For example, if I were on that flight and I were to complain about someone's Naruto shirt because I find weeaboo shit offensive, I'd rightly be told to just deal with it. This is actually a perfect example of a reason given that just doesn't... follow. The real reason for that decision to bring the hammer on the Nazi hat guy is that Nazi opinions are unpopular and, as a private entity (even though it's a heavily regulated one), they have social and legal license to give him shit for expressing those views. It had nothing to do with FAA regulations and everything to do wanting to fuck with Neo-Nazis.

Do I have an inherent objection to Nazi shit being socially unacceptable and people getting in trouble for going around in public with clothes that read "1488 GAS THE KIKES RACE WAR NOW"? Not really, but please don't shit me about why you're doing it when you do. Spare me the mental gymnastics.

In conclusion, just tell me you think my character idea is shit instead of trying to water it down with arbitrary stat restrictions and bureaucracy until I want to quit, and just admit that you want to suppress certain political views when you demand people remove their hats by pain of removing them from an airplane.

@surreality I do run a very small game, and I try to make it clear the sheer arbitrariness of my decisions. The standard for accepting a character is if I think it's cool or not. If I can't sit there and have a jovial conversation about what you should totally do with this concept you've given me, I don't want it in my shit. It's kept the game I run small, and I kind of like it that way.

It's also quite relaxing knowing that it's still a free country and "lol, fuck that" is a good enough reason to reject someone's idea. What I find the most annoying is not when I get told "no," but when I get told "no," and the reason offered just... doesn't follow. When I perceive the reason given not so much as subjective, but outright wrong, I have this bizarre compulsion to argue the point. Sometimes, I get the impression that the reason they've given is concocted, like they're trying to find a polite way to say "your character is stupid." I'd much rather be just told that I talk like a fag, and my shit's all retarded than have some concocted non-reason thrown at me for why a character/ maneuver is rejected.

After all, it's not like running this game for me is some essential service. They aren't ER doctors who are ethically obligated to treat my injury even if I have "WHITE PRIDE" tattooed onto my forehead. I think the pretense of impartiality coupled with the plain lack of it is way worse than being told to shit in my hat outright. I think the use of professionalspeak in the context of a game about pretending to be a vampire or whatever is just plain cringey; it betrays how seriously you take yourself.

I also think I'm in the minority for perceiving things this way.

@ThatGuyThere How to say no: "no."

That said, there's really nothing wrong with leaving because you got told "no," so I can definitely see that going wrong.

I usually use telnet, which everybody else finds disgusting. lmao I tend to agree, but it's installed on every computer ever at this point. It's built right into the system.

@Thenomain I fundamentally agree with this, the thing is, how does one go about getting such a playerbase?

Also, I'm primarily interested in weird, experimental games. You know, the ones who break all the normal expectations. Things that just change the rules outright. Shit like, "Oh, you don't have a character that's your character, we elect people into roles on a weekly basis" or something. Maybe "Yeah we just do one on one" or "actually this game is done entirely on a wiki," like Lexicon RPG.

Just funky stuff like that. Characterization is important, but I just want to see new angles, new twists, on this (now) old idea of roleplaying. But the real question is, how do you get people willing to try weird shit like this? My guess (and, really, my experience) is: you don't.

@Lotherio I completely feel this man. And then they feel the need to 'correct' all of the 'mistakes' of your submission, which really just means watering it down into generic, boring, uninteresting crap because you aren't part of the in-crowd and therefore have zero leeway for any special snowflake shit. Everything you do has to be strictly by-the-book, so to speak.

What goes into making a MU* from scratch? I don't necessarily mean just the technical aspects.

The biggest question: How does one get a playerbase? Do you just invite your friends over and hope more come along? Do you depend on your reputation as an upstanding MU*-friend?

I've had some fun ideas for MU*'s of my own but never really knew where to start