Best posts made by Thenomain

So I just got finished adding 26 Conditions (and having someone else edit even more) in preparation of codifying Changeling, and I'm also looking at the Clarity damage system and their method of Touchstones and Icons, and I've come to the personal conclusion that Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition is the second most personal game Onyx Path has written, nipping at the heels of the first edition Prometheus and it's story-arc system.

Almost everything in this game revolves the gaining and losing of Clarity, a specific kind of sanity that gives teeth to the situation of uncertainty of a world that first edition CtL promised.

This game looks like a bastard to keep track of. How can someone run this without printing the Conditions on flash cards? The amount of dice you roll for taking Clarity Damage is more fluid than the combat system. I say this with excitement. If you aren't playing with Conditions and messing with Clarity, you might as well just stick with CtL 1e.

I do like the simplification of the Contracts and the deadly knife of Pledges.

I do not know how I'm going to code a lot of this.

Witcher For Free from GOG (and Ars Technica).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/ars-and-gog-two-great-tastes-that-go-great-together/

Enjoy!

@Kanye-Qwest

Yup. Thus taking "do x" as a goal, not a solution. A step, not a criticism. I'm not saying that simple advice is bad advice, but it's just advice. Just like a whole lot of other things, how the receiver takes it is also important.

"Put more effort into it" is not the only solution to being an accepted part of a community. The, er, Gender-Neutral PHB (I'm trying to think of a better way to put that, but will probably fail) is a huge part of the community, but is not something we would want to encourage. The people who are eager to engage with them are not doing themselves any good. I've seen good games collapse because good people followed cults of personality. I've seen toxic personalities maintain a game to the detriment of its players, who happily went along with it. I will go toe-to-toe with you or Apos about this.

Another thing I will go to the wall about: "Fun" is a mug's game. "Be Fun" implies that if you're not fun then people won't like you. This is utter bullshit. I'll go as far as to say this is dangerous thinking. (Even if it wasn't intended; now that I'm on this path I'm going to say it.) "Fun" is like "pretty". Very. Subjective. Judgement. Call.

Another answer is: Find people you like and show that like them back. Showing that you're interested in people works a lot of the time. This has been mentioned before and it's solid advice. I'm not going to say it's simple, but I will say that it doesn't have to take a lot of time.

I will agree that you have to put yourself in a situation for these things to happen. Sometimes they happen by accident; revel in those moments, but most of the time when it happens it's because you were doing something.

The Humble Store is having a Spring Sale.

"The Witcher Adventure (board) Game" is on sale for $3. I understand it's rather good.

Enjoy.

@Cupcake
Pose directly at someone. People will respond to their name, often having it hilited, and this also gives you and excuse to page them if they don’t seem to respond. “Did you miss this?” is polite, and I’ve seen it many times when I legitimately don’t see someone posing at me in bigger scenes.

This way you’ve tried to engage someone directly, and have given them the benefit of the doubt if they overlook you, and you reinforce your interest in an OOC manner without being pushy.

Just a suggestion, of course. Find what works best for you. (This means there will be failures. It’s hard to learn sometimes, but failure here is okay. I am your proof of this.)

And remember, everyone is different. Even if three people brush you off doesn’t mean the fourth will.

And if they do? Their loss. I try to play somewhere I know people so I can ask them if they know what’s going on. This is much harder to do alone, but can be done.

Good luck!

@silverfox said in How do you like things GMed?:

How do you approach GMing scenes?

By walking in the opposite direction. Sometimes I even run. I've GM'd one scene successfully in my entire life, and even that was later negated by the players involved getting around the consequences.

I will say, however, that if you leave your character for two months and don't respond to emails about it, you don't get to complain that you didn't get a say in what happened to it.

A lot of posters are going into minutiae as if people are generally that devious. They are not. If you talk to someone about what they did, they generally will be honest about it, even if it’s because what they feel they did is not bad and they’re defending it. This makes it easy to tackle the problem head-on.

People who are that devious will eventually cause a pattern, especially if people keep reporting them to staff. I was once stuck in a situation where I had to say “we know and are keeping an eye on things” which does not inspire confidence but once we did act, people were quite grateful.

@Tinuviel said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

I was talking primarily about appearances

And you appear to be argumentative for no reason.

Or it would be better to say: You appear to me to be argumentative for no reason.

If your thesis is that staff is responsible for the court of public opinion, I counter that people are going to believe what they want even when it's not reasonable to do so.

There is no 100% responsibility here. Because there is no clear answer. Looking for one is exacerbating the problem by putting up unreasonable expectations.

@Saulot said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

@faraday Don't get me wrong, I get that. It's a problem of people getting burned for so long on games, or seeing it happen, that trust out of the gate is a hard thing to give.

To speak for Faraday, but also translate, this concept is alien to her for almost her entire online career. And because of that I’m going to support the shit out of her attempts at keeping it that way.

That’s not to say I haven’t tried on many occasions to explain this to her, but Faraday has done well with her world view so sees no reason to adjust it.

I can’t say this is wrong, it does mean, however, in discussions with her you have to adjust to HER world view. She’s not going to understand our experience.

—

@faraday

Okay, now some serious responses:

@Pandora said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

[Things] that happens outside of a game's in-house systems (mail, pages, messenger) is nearly impossible for staff to police.

Even things on-game are difficult to police. An experienced staffer (or someone who can see the shape of things instead of the literal nature of things) can use the same methods of managing problems based upon on-game behavior as off-game behavior.

We (Emmah, Troy and I) did this on The Reach twice. Once it even stuck.

When this is okay to do is an entirely different question. We're not talking about a game, here; we're talking about behavior to and about "intersectional" issues on a private chat server. I'm imagining Wora For Non-Straights. Its own rules can easily straightjacket its ability to have honest discussion about difficult or contentious issues, or to have discussions with high-strung personalities.

IGU kind of worked, but they did get caught in the loop of defending its own rules against otherwise reasonable, if sometimes snarky, discourse. Not as bad as Electric Soup; that place ate itself in months.

You're now accepting the burden of being yet one more place where vulnerable people are wearing a target on their back without the protection of staff aid should things go pear-shaped

This is a very subtle and interesting point: Kestrel has designed a discussion group around people who see themselves as vulnerable. Some vulnerable people do lash out when they feel attacked, making the pear all on their own.

Personally I think the answer is to say this: "We are here for X reason, and to discuss X in a reasonable manner."

Or as Kanye brought into the Soapbox vernacular a while ago, "We don't do that here." Just with a follow-up as to what we do do here.

Do do.

Scooby dooby doo.

It pains people like me that Soapbox doesn't have a more clear focus than "eh, whatever, just don't burn the place down", but that's Soapbox. IMC (I'm calling it "IMC" now) has a much clearer purpose. I can see, like Surreality and others, that the rules of the community can stop the administration from maintaining it, but we also forget the #1 rule of any private group: My group, my rules.

Which is why Tempest got a million upvotes for questioning Kestrel's personality.

Because no matter the rules, this hobby has proven over and over and over and over again that the rules don't matter compared to the administration enforcing them.

@Auspice said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

Because I fear it would be based on personal feelings/opinions and clash of personalities as opposed to 'this person did actually treat people of minorities poorly.'

I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.

Because I really doubt it will immediately affect anyone who posts here, and almost nobody I know who still Mushes. And also because "my house my rules" is always Rule #1 on anyone's project, so nobody should be chewing their fingernails in fear.

And we well know that even if there's a minor infraction against a Soapbox poster's sensibilities then we will hear how horrible it is, covering up the things that are antithetical to its goal.

@Arkandel said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

It's not leadership or rules that I suspect will be their biggest challenge, it's the echoing chamber effect.

I agree.

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@Ghost

I've been struggling with a reply to this for a good ten minutes now, so I'm going to throw this against the wall to see what sticks. I'm aware it's not a well-formed argument, but I find your implied (or inferred!) logic flawed.

What I'm reading here is that a "quorum of like minded individuals" can maintain a space if they have a vote of no-confidence on its current leader.

I would like to counter than a group of individuals, even if having the best interest, can ruin a community as quickly, if not quicker, than an individual leader.

If the question was "will you step down if that's the best thing for the community", fine, but there's a lot of implication in your questions and conclusions that a dictator, even a benevolent one, is worse than a quorum.

@Ghost said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

@Thenomain said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

there's a lot of implication in your questions and conclusions that a dictator, even a benevolent one, is worse than a quorum.

Not really.

It could go either way.

"It depends?" No kidding? Tautologies gonna tautology.

Take MSB for example. @Arkandel releasing it to some kind of public ownership makes no sense, but what's interesting is that this group is a socio-political movement of sorts based on the importance of such a group to exist to protect people. While Ark has final say on admin level decisions for the space, the decision has been made to let the group decide what it wants itself to be within certain guidelines they feel are reasonable. Ultimately, @Arkandel owns MSB as a space, but does not take the position of leadership/ownership of what is discussed here.

Dude.

Pronouns.

Clarify when "this" is referencing two entirely different points, please, because now someone is going to add the "Duck Season/Rabbit Season" GIF.

Ultimately, @Arkandel owns MSB as a space, but does not take the position of leadership/ownership of what is discussed here.

No, but he has the tools to do so at a moment's notice. Though he and Ganymede may not take the steps to enforce this, they own this space.

"Leader" is another matter. I mean, c'mon, it's Ark. "Leader?" Pff, hah!

In short, on the topic of intersectionality

Except the topic is not "intersectionality". The topic is "discussion groups". You've said nothing that can't apply to any discussion group.

Which brings us back down to this:

• Does the creator intend to retain sole final vote on all decisions and ultimately decide what the group is or isn't about?
• Or does the creator take the approach that a socio-political topic such as intersectionality or a safe space is something that their own opinions or ego shouldn't dominate?

And I still say there's something very wrong here, either whether it's a false analogy or black-and-white once the words "ego" and "dominate" come in.

It could go either way.

Or.

It could go a little of one way plus a little of another, depending on the moment, the mood of the room, the consideration of the things going into it.

Ark and Ganymede step in from time to time, as they see needs fit. Sometimes we manage to convince them that something needs to change, sometimes they tell us that they're not going to change it. The Advertisement board is my most recent evidence, but damn if there are more options besides "do what I want" and "completely hands-off".

@Arkandel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Wrongfun may be used incorrectly but there's nothing wrong with the word itself.

Like there's nothing wrong with the swastika when used for its original purpose.

(Oh yeah, I went there.)

--

@Derp said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

This works if all of your staff are onboard

Are you saying that a cultural thing works if the culture is for it? Because...I didn't think that needed to be said, but I guess it needs to be said:

Any rule, idea, law, news file, or expectation needs to be supported and enforced by staff.

Or as I keep repeating: All behavior on a game stems from staff.

@faraday said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

I think it's an arbitrary distinction because the phrase "NPC" is kind of goofy, inconsistently used, and unclear when you're talking about MUSHes.

Tahdah!

@mietze said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@Thenomain npc implies some purpose of plot or in game IC direction/supervision/touchstone utilized by staff.

Does it?

If you throw a bottle in a bar and someone—staff or not—poses someone getting hit, does that serve IC direction? Is, then, any aspect of the game setting "serving IC direction"?

To me, in Mush context, an NPC is part of the environment. Sometimes it's a tree, standing there looking pretty. Sometimes it's a bolt of lighting, and my character is holding a golf club to the heavens daring god to do something about it.

To me, in Mush context, anyone can work with an NPC to a limitation of reasonableness as much as a player can to any other part of the environment.

@saosmash said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

who cares where the ftb point is?