Best posts made by Thenomain

@Auspice

Thenomain.

Fuck that guy. He's everywhere I go.

I wouldn’t mind if someone started watching a show without me.

As long as they are okay with watching it again with me.

@Auspice said in Privacy in gaming:

You are literally sending data over an unprotected means of communication.

If I leave my house unlocked, you are still trespassing if you enter it uninvited.

The technicalities of this are only part of the equation; the other part is expectation.

Honestly, the argument on whether or not players should expect some privacy has made me sick. The answer is not “you are on an unprotected server therefore you should expect none”, the answer is, “I have no interest in the work involved in protecting you from privacy violations, so expect that there are none.”

There’s a reason we don’t allow cameras in bathrooms in ... well, not in Ohio, and I’m hoping that’s everywhere else. Technically there’s nothing stopping people. Hell, the wall between urinals is barely enough to keep someone from staring.

We punish people who do things that are technically possible all the time. The idea that “it’s possible therefore it’s allowed” is what makes me angry.

There are many other reasons to not expect privacy on a Mu*, but “because we can” isn’t one of them.

I didn't expect this to be a stand-alone system, but in all the years I've coded for RP Mu*s here is a system that covers everything that I was asked to (and sometimes not asked to do):

A TinyMUX RP Approval System

The setup instructions are in the file, and though it currently is buried within my GMC (nWoD v2) chargen.

---

WHAT IS THIS FOR?

This is to make a user-defined function and a system to keep track of the various approval states of characters. This system can keep track of:

• chargen (never approved ever)
• approved (a-ok for the RP)
• unapproved (no longer ok for RP; a revoked 'approve')
• npc (approved + npc)
• storyteller (approved + storyteller)
• frozen (unapproved + frozen)
• dead (unapproved + dead)

The states of 'npc', 'storyteller', and probably 'frozen' are for other systems to access. You don't have to use them if you don't want to.

<GAMENAME>.CONF

You're going to need a few things, the most important of which is access to the server account. User-defined flags are relied upon, and you'll need to be the one to make them.

Depending on your install, you're probably looking for <gamename>.conf in which you'll want to make sure you're not clobbering flags made by other people. You'll need four.

Suffice it to say, re-name the 'marker*<x>*' to the free flag markers. You only get nine.

## flags ########################################
## flags: approval
flag_name marker0 approved
flag_name marker1 NPC
flag_name marker2 unapproved
flag_name marker3 storyteller

flag_access marker0 wizard
flag_access marker1 wizard
flag_access marker2 wizard
flag_access marker3 wizard

USER-DEFINED FUNCTIONS

Each game has a slightly different way of defining functions, that is, of using the @function wiz-only command. After you install the system, make sure that isapproved() is not using the /privileged switch!

This system makes only one function, isapproved(), but like most of my code, I use it to death. Even isapproved() uses isapproved()!

INSTALLATION

Because this is currently buried in the GMCCG, you'll need to make an object for it first. From someone who is wizard-endowed:

@create Character Generation Approval System <cg>=10
@set cg=inherit safe

Then, go to the link above. Copy all of it. Paste it in @Glitch's Muxify.

Finally, make sure that &ufunc.isapproved is caught by whatever @function machine you have on your game.

Then drop the object in your master room and @restart. Viola!

TWEAKING THE APPROVAL TYPES

Each approval type has its own command, and each approval type can be tweaked. After doing the usual log-handling stuff, the system triggers an attribute specifically for that command/approval type.

Here is cg/freeze, which is probably the one that will be tweaked the most.

&trig.approval.switch/freeze cg=
	@set %1=unapproved !approved !npc !storyteller; 
	@set %1=_approval.frozen:%2; 

You might want to rename the character, or teleport them, or do other things to them. Add it here. Let's add the semi-standard re-name:

	@name %1=[name( %1 )]_[rest( %1, # )]; 
	@teleport/quiet %1=#<my freezer>; 
	@trigger %!/trig.unapprove.foo=%1; 

TWEAKING THE CG/LOG

I'm not currently a huge fan of the timestamp output for cg/log, or adding the dbref to the enacting staffer for that log entry, so I made each column of output flexible. &format.approval.<thing> is where you want to look:

&format.approval.timestamp cg=
	timefmt( $H:$M $d.$m.$y, %0 )

A NOTE ABOUT DISPLAY WIDTH

I use wheader() et al. because it stretches across the player's screen, and the rest of the code in this system expects to know how wide the user's screen is. Use it. Thanks.

A HELP FILE

I don't really have one written yet. Sorry!

@BallisticOrange said:

The kiths seem to be having the issue they did in 1E, which is to say some serious bonuses to one or two and a few others that look a bit dodgy by compare.

In other news: nWoD's water is probably as wet in 2e as in 1e.

@rizbunz said in oWoD - Is there such thing as a good one?:

It all depends on the fun YOU make for yourself.

To borrow a phrase from @surreality, it depends.

Sometimes the fun you make for yourself is going to run counter to someone else's idea of fun.

Sorry, let me clarify that:

The fun you make for yourself is WILL run counter to someone else's idea of fun.

The drama we get is the friction between our actions and the actions or beliefs of others. Just as much as finding out what is fun for us, we also have to be accepting of the differences of others.

Not stupid, just accepting.

Man, it's sad what happened to @HelloRaptor. Remember that guy? I remember that guy.

RIP, good buddy. My condolences go out to @EmmahSue for her loss.

Sigh.

On HM, we Changelings wouldn't wait for things to happen. I understand that people think that "plot" is a definable thing, but stop it. Stop thinking like that. Seriously, stop it. Everyone who thinks like that, stop. To those who lament the lack of plot, please stop mis-attributing the problem. A lot of people don't need permission to act, but have been whipped by staff out of trying.

Un-learn this. Become responsible active participants. Stop thinking about plots.

@Lithium said:

@Thenomain said:

Everything your character does is because of what you decide about the character. Everything. Ev-er-y-thing. There is not one single aspect of the character that doesn't come from you. If your character runs from a fight, it's because that's what you want for the character. If your character stands on a table and strips, it's because that's what you want for the character.
<snip>

This is false except in pure consent games.

Nope. It's entirely true. 100%.

It's OOC that you agree to cede control to the game rules as appropriate. You agreed to it by the mere act of logging in or showing up to the table. You agreed to follow theme and setting and rules.

And when you don't want something to happen, you appeal to the other player, in an OOC manner. This is the social aspect of RPGs. This is why the table is important. This is why context is important.

My "IC==OOC==IC" statement is because there is no such thing as pure IC. The term "IC" should be used as a way to describe actions of the character vs. actions of the player, but we Mushers have, over the years, become increasingly control-freaky about it to the point where it's sometimes hard to remind people that without depending upon that OOC element of socialbility, this entire hobby is toxic. You cannot, ever, put the character before the player. Cannot for good role-play, and cannot for good mental or social health.

Incidentally, a lot of people here have realized or are realizing that this entire hobby has become toxic.

Which is good.

--

edit: I don't mean "this entire hobby is toxic" in the sense of literalism, but hyperbole. The toxic parts of this hobby are those that put the character before the players, the rules before the players, and one player before another. It all comes from you, from me, from us. There is not one element that we don't have control over, even if that element is to leave. Or to stop drawing fire from staff. Or negotiate. Or change the character so that you and those around you have more fun. Or fudge the dice so that you and those around you can have more fun. It's about us, the players, not them, the characters.

We've gotten is so ass-backwards that it takes mighty egos to keep it running that way.

@Grayson said in Any Fate free WOD games left?:

oWoD wise there's Sheltering Sky and GarouMUSH.

There’s always GarouMush. There will always be GarouMush. When mankind has passed and gone, the cockroaches will band together in a psychic compulsion to run GarouMush.

After much consideration and continuing discussion both here and behind every scene on our Super-Private-Clique Planning Forum, I think we're going to do this with waiting lists: Not have them.

While I enjoyed the back and forth, and I learned a lot and got to think about things I normally don't, for now I think the complexity of many proposals outweighs the benefits of what they're meant to do.

Of course, we could change our minds before we open.

Or some time after.

Any time, really.

And if someone abuses the spirit of what a game is for, it's up to staff, not code nor a fine-tuned policy of exactness and legalese, to work out the best solution to that.

Hey, I have more time now so I'm going to retreat back along the thread quite a bit.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Do many MUSHers have an aversion to conflict-based RP

In short, yes, and it's for reasons further removed from my "code vs. cooperation" distinction from Mud to Mush, though I and other people have touched on this enough that it's probably been sufficiently answered, but I want to dig further into this. You (Kestrel) have even answered some of it.

Conflict in a lot of RPG Mushes means combat which means death. A lot of people in the World of Darkness games see this as the primary conflict resolution. Killing means no more problem, and only a hit to a stat which is not tied into any other stat and therefore the consequences can easily be ignored so it is and was, systematically, consequence-free.

This created an OOC culture of people who were paranoid that people were killing for, well, OOC reasons. Because a lot of people were. You may think that the concept of an "online troll" is new, but it really isn't; being a dick because you can and it's funny to watch people get upset has been around for a long, long time. Well, in the WoD Mush community, the backlash to this was mighty. Staffers were draconian against people who even thought about doing this, because they were often victims to it themselves, so they started or became staff on games and were going to "fix everything".

Who groaned? Yes, if you've ever been in a company with a new manager who immediately decides to "fix everything" that normally means headaches all around as everything is changed regardless of what works. And because these staffers are trying to be good and righteous, and are also kind of paranoid, they created some of the very worst Staffer-vs-Player schisms.

Incidentally, birthing Wora (the precursor to Soapbox). This history is about a decade old. Maybe more; I can't remember.

The other thing you can do as staffer is get all the cool things that previous games would never get you. So you had some staffers doing bad things for good reasons, and others doing bad things for no reason, and you end up with a bunch of players who are poisoned by distrust, and legitimately so. These players become staffers, and the cycle continues.

This is only half of it.

---

The other half is what we've all been talking about. Players like to own their character, because it can take a long time to create it, and longer to get into it, and the emotional investment is both good (they want to see what happens next) and bad (they don't want to feel their effort is meaningless).

So what we ended up with was:

• A game about (not) killing people.
• Distrust of the staff/game arbiters.
• Investment in our work.

We have, I will admit, gotten over a lot of these issues. A lot of that is because we killed OOC Masquerade (things players aren't allowed to know about your character, even if they know them). We killed it dead. We killed it because if we can create an enjoyable game out of trust, then being antagonistic becomes acceptable. e.g., I know you're slighting me because your character can't stand mine, not because you have it out for me, not because your character is going to kill mine. With respect for the player, we can do more with the characters.

That can go too far. Like Political Correctness, if you slide that slippery slope to the ultimate conclusion, this means that if you're not super-nice or super-careful with other characters, then we can easily return to the bad old days.

I think this slippery slope is point-missing, myself, but it's a logical conclusion. The wrong conclusion to have, but logical all the same.

---

In one of the most enjoyable scenes I had on Fallcoast (WoD Mux), my homeless character was shamed by a grandma who was just taking her granddaughter out to get icecream, and dirty stinky hobo ruined it. It was NPCd by someone, and they were worried that they were pushing me out of the scene, and I said no, no, that was awesome, when can we play again. It was engaging, and my part in the scene didn't go on longer than it had to by, e.g., my character scoffing and mocking the woman. I could have played it that way, but I enjoy playing someone who is not Always The Hero Of Their Own Story. Certainly someone with human emotions, who can be mocked and shamed for their faults. We need more of this. We need more world-building imagination, not just "I must win against all against me" which leads to the "kill" mentality.

Incidentally, if you NPC'd that grandma, please PM me and tell me when we can scene again!

---

I feel like I have a kindred spirit in that regard, @Kestrel, which is part of why I wanted to dive into that one point. Also, to wrap up some history, and some conversation in this thread which really directly answered your question.

Ta, again.

@ThatGuyThere

The asking to join the scene one or the principle or respecting the scene in place is a direct outgrowth of people being pissed off as a result of others completely shitting on scenes in progress.

This. Yes, the social contract is inefficient, @Kestrel, but it works when there is no adjudication in place, no staff on hand to control the scene, no code to say what is right and wrong. I've head some of us mushers occasionally claim the idea "because I can, it's okay". Someone left their character object open for teleportation so I can jump to them, their fault if they didn't turn it off. I'm staff so I can act on any information available to me, too bad if you think otherwise. I can see where you are on the game so I'm going to tell my buddies who are looking to beat you up too bad for you. All lot these are real examples.

There are many reasons to ask, as people have said, but I'll give you a secret:

If you think you're not going to be a jerk, it's just as okay to not ask.

It is a public part of the grid, after all. Check in, say hey, make friends, scoff at the beer selection, have short scenes or long scenes, pose having an enjoyable walk in the park, mix it up for you and for them.

I mostly ask so I know that I won't be sitting there posing to myself. If your okay putting on a short show, then don't let that stop you.

Remember, a Mush is mainly about a game-space for role-playing. The play's the thing. If what you decide to do respects this, and on the whole respects the other people who have the similar aim, you're probably alright.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

TL;DR – to avoid coming off like an ass, try communicating with other players

Another "this". I'm afraid that we are getting mired down in definitions that have more than one connotation, which is the "cultural differences" thing that we've been trying to address from the start.

Respect & understand. All these games are based on social interactions. Communicating is one great way to do this, but isn't the only way. Hell, if there's no need to communicate you can stick to "being IC" and roll with it. There is, again, absolutely nothing wrong with this, as long as you know when to step out of the role and address the players.

Maybe that's why a lot of us gravitate toward WoD. Yeah, it's wish fulfillment at its highest (trumped only by superhero games), but it also has drilled in the Golden Rule of White Wolf: If you don't need a rule, don't use it. Mushes evolved from Pure RP environments. Most people who wanted code-heavy systems went immediately to, well, a real code system (MUD is based on C). The casuals stuck it out with Mush.

On the whole, Mush for Role-Play First, and Mud for Game First. We all need to remember that the full name of what we do is "Role-Playing Game". Nothing is perfect, here, but here we are, bouncing between the two.

Ta.

A game is a success in my eyes if I had fun.

I can't think of a single other metric that matters.

---

edit: Sigh, fine, I'll expand.

I expect a game said to be thematic to be thematic, and the players and staff to be in on the theme and setting.

I sign onto a game to play the game advertised, either explicitly (through advertisements) or implicitly (through news files).

I want staff and players to be part of the same team. Most of the things I've seen staff do that sour me from even trying come from this. Most of the things I've seen players do that sour me from staffing come from this.

This is incredibly high-level stuff that I wanted to get on the thread before people drag it down with the minutae of "well this one game once did this one very minor thing that threw me off trying games for-EV-ER, even though it only happened to me once and I got over it", and the subsequent derailed conversation about it.

I would much rather watch people try and see than not try at all.

Everything about policy files is what staff expects. Everything in policy files should be what staff are willing to react to.

The most honest policy I've ever seen: "Don't make us care."

No matter what other policies are in place, you can get away with anything if staff doesn't care, and can't get away with a friendly "hello" to someone if staff does care.

There are worries that go along with this, starting with, "How do I know what you care about?" This, and every other policy, comes down to the ability for staff to self-police. If staff can't self-police, what they say doesn't matter and you might as well default to the Playground Politics rules of these games.

For games where staff is responsible, "Don't make us care" is one of the best things you can hear. It says something more like, "As long as you guys get along, you can do whatever. It's when you don't get along that we'll have to do something, and we don't want to do this, and we'll be grumpy, and we won't make you happy." This is not a bad policy to have, if you can otherwise keep the game staff cordial.

I don't know if Bob was the first to mention it, but FTB must be a policy. I don't normally talk about them because I don't really believe in "rights" on games, but FTB must be a right of any player.

Your character still has to live with the consequences. The players should talk out the resolution to be fair to everyone. But if someone doesn't want to pose everything out, they have every right to say "no".

@TwoGunBob

I mostly agree with you, except for this:

(@Miss-Demeanor said:)

Actually, if you think of a villainous plan as a long-term plot? Villains can absolutely win.

I mean, c'mon, President Tr--errrrr, Luthor. But where I agree with you: It starts with all players and all staff being willing to allow this. It also means that the villains don't just start killing off the heroes. It means the heroes must be imperfect, and villains must be imperfect, and as @faraday says keeping it more about the story.

@Misadventure said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

A person can be a pernicious catalyst of destruction.

They can be the ever renewing trigger of destruction. So no it's not all their masterful control of humanity, just their ability to see human weaknesses, and instead of shoring those up, they manipulate them to tear everything down.

I have heard of Custodius second-hand, but have heard of him so many times that I am willing to believe he's exactly what people say he is. The closest I've come to interacting him from a staff level, not one of the four women who had problems with him would come forward, even anonymously and through a third party, for fear of his abuse. I felt terrible because I'd rather these four women than any one Custodius, yet I knew that we'd probably end up with the exact opposite.

Surprising nobody, I am going to also remind people: VA Spider.