Posts made by TheBigD

@reason So your Cyberpunk MU is close to getting off the ground, then?

@prototart Really? Lol. I'm getting towards the end of that quest line. Bwahaha, I can't wait.

@HorrorHound said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Man, look at you guys having civil conversations. What happened to this place? Did they legalize weed around the world or something?

It was legalized in Canada. Welcome aboard, eh?

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

"Okay, dude wants to play X, ban his ass because obviously he's a Y."

Where does this happen?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7120933/family-guy-cleveland-voice-actor-steps-down/

Ask yourself why someone who has voiced a character for 20 years decides to step down, for the reason he stated.

And as I stated upstream, I've witnessed it once already.

@GreenFlashlight said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

The more reasonable people are the ones who would take things at face value, and not assume the worst.

but

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

The point is that back in the day, the more reasonable people would be willing to have a discussion about the implications of a white person portraying a black person in a roleplaying game.

How can you both take things at face value and have a discussion about implications, unless your stance is there are no implications so the discussion shouldn't happen?

When I say take things at face value, I mean to not make assumptions and flip out. "Okay, dude wants to play X, so let's hear their reasoning and what they want to get out of it." over "Okay, dude wants to play X, ban his ass because obviously he's a Y."

@Kestrel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I really wonder who you think are the more reasonable people in this debate, because it kinda sounds like this was never your discussion to have, to begin with, and stuff that was never OK is now actually being treated like it isn't OK. Whereas before the more reasonable people, who in this debate I'm gonna assume are people of colour, would be drowned out if they tried to raise their concerns.

Because this just sounds like the MUSoapbox version of that ol' 'PC culture has gone too far, you know back in my day we could call people a f— and a n— and nobody would bat an eyelid'.

And to that I just can't properly respond at the moment, because Stradivarius don't make violins small enough.

The more reasonable people are the ones who would take things at face value, and not assume the worst.

And your second paragraph there is exactly that, assuming the worst. That was not what I was talking about.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

My point is, I can imagine all sorts of people doing something rather ignorant, it happens every day, but not doing something because someone on the internet can be both wrong and angry at the same time isn't really a reason not to. I'm, again, not advocating that anyone do anything outside of their comfort zone, but if anyone in this thread said that a white person playing a black person or whatever is basically blackface, someone please present me with that so I can see the argument. So far I've mostly seen people annoyed at grossly bad portrayals that I feel are more common sense things than anything.

The point is that back in the day, the more reasonable people would be willing to have a discussion about the implications of a white person portraying a black person in a roleplaying game. There would be rational, logical discussion about it. But due to changes in the past hmm, 20 years or so, those reasonable people are drowned out by less reasonable people. Where every time there are multiple reasons to do a particular thing, these people decide that you do this particular thing for the absolute worst reason.

And it used to be that you could safely ignore these people. Everyone could see that they were being irrational. Being contrary just to be contrary. Not any more.

You might say, "Oh, but D, there's only a very small chance of running into these people on a MU* somewhere." And to that I say, "Bull-fucking-shit." You might say, "Oh, but D, there's little chance that they could have any pull or impact." Bullshit. "Oh but it'd all stay in that game and you could just walk away if things got bad." Bullshit.

But yeah, just, like, there's really only two possible explanations for situations like these.

1. The person playing the character is doing so on a degree so bad that it's obviously bothering people (I have seen this happen before and on some occasions I have seen it be so extremely bad that I was like "How is it possible that they have no idea how bad this is?")

I'm not concerned about playing something so bad that it bothers people. That wouldn't be the point of playing a black person. I'm not interested in playing a terrible stereotype. And I would not do that. I'm concerned about the second part, below.

2. The person accusing the player of not doing something correctly is obviously wrong in some way and has a misunderstanding of what they're even talking about in such a way that it would be obvious to most people observing.

This is the crux of my problem. Yes, it might be that people would see that it is obvious. However, that has not prevented people from being hounded from a MU*, or being banned by such a person who happens to own/operate the MU*. My concern is that with the rise of "doxxing", my regular life would be impacted because I had the "temerity" to attempt to roleplay a person whose skin colour was not the same as my own.

It's fucked up, but I've seen it happen. It's not worth the risk, at all.

But, on the flip side, every criticism of what someone does isn't a take-down or assassination attempt. Sometimes you did do something wrong, sometimes you did fuck up playing that character, and sometimes you just need to take the L when it gets explained to you and not develop some weird years long bizarre trauma because someone said you're bad at black characters.

Your last sentence completely misses the point. It's not me with the trauma.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Yikes.

But, also, that's kind of a good thing as it shows you the type of environment it is. I would much rather know up front if there is a crazy drama bomb waiting to explode.

There is that. But sometimes you don't know it's a drama bomb until it's too late.

And it's one thing if it's just a player or two. It's far worse when it's an admin.

@JinShei said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

As a nurse, feel free. But it should have bodily fluids on it, be trousers, and have a pen stain mark on the pockets.

Hah, fair enough. But I suspect they meant the "sexy" nurse outfit. If I were going as a nurse for Halloween, it would be scrubs and enough blood and gore to make someone wonder if I was the survivor or the zombie. xD

@Kanye-Qwest said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I play POC and other genders/orientations quite frequently, and no one has ever said anything like this to me.

I am happy that you've had a good experience in playing other genders, orientations and PoC. But I have seen people had strips tore out of them, verbally, for doing what Egg suggested. Banned for doing so, as well, with the crass comment of, "Player is probably of the type to wear a nurse's outfit or Native chieftain costume for Halloween." I didn't stay long there.

EDIT: Took out some snarkiness.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Either way, anyone saying that playing a POC in an RP is cultural appropriation is completely objectively wrong. Though as the example above proved, someone can be a whole ass and it can definitely turn into something racist lol. To me this is just common sense though. That "everything is offensive and understanding how not to be insulting is hard" stuff people always say is nonsense. I know far more white people who understand basic respect and not being a whole ass than ones who don't, so I really don't think it's that complicated.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying play a POC if you aren't comfortable with it, but not doing it because you think people will find it inherently insulting and offensive and all this other stuff is really only a valid reason if you literally have no idea how not to insult another human being. If the reason is "I don't feel comfortable because I'm concerned about being disrespectful", that's one thing, but the way you worded it has a very inflammatory "the SJWs will absolutely fucking destroy me" vibe. I can't imagine someone complaining to you that "RPing as a black person is basically blackface" outside of like a random 13 year old on Twitter whose entire understanding of social issues is memes.

The vast majority of people are fairly reasonable. I am not concerned about their reaction. I'm worried about the people who will conflate a white person playing a black one as racist and cultural appropriation. I think I could play a black character and pull it off reasonably well. But there are people who have nothing better to do than find the next person who is 'wrong' on the internet, and 'take them down'.

If you can't imagine someone doing it, you don't have much of an imagination. As I said originally, I'd rather take the safer option.

@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Play a POC, it wouldn't kill you.

Yeah, no. This is a situation where no one wins. There are folks who will find this idea to be as insulting as wearing blackface. And others who would call it cultural appropriation.

Me, as a white guy? I'm choosing the safer option every time.

Thank you for the suggestions! I may still try to get it to work on Windows, but I think I've been convinced to attempt Linux.

The discord link you have up the thread a bit has expired. Is it possible to get a new one?

@silverfox Why does Trump, suddenly appear... whenever poop is near~

@faraday Account security. If they don't delete people's accounts, then at least if you know that the person has left, you can immediately shut them down if the account is somehow hijacked.

@Ninjakitten You haven't paid yet. I'm not allowed to argue with you.

Are there any decent codebases that will run on Windows? Whether or not you would need a separate program to do things.

Looking for more of a muck/mush than a mud, but a mud would do.

@misadventure As far as spoken or text, you can do either or both, really. It's up to your comfort level. You can look through the "players wanted" forum at Roll20, and you'll find plenty of text-only offerings, and others with voice chat as a requirement. From my experience, since it feels a bit more 'live' than a MU*, a text-only Shadowrun game was quite taxing as a GM. The text chat does have some limited emit/speak-as capability, though. I just found it much easier, and faster, if I spoke instead of typing.