Best posts made by Thenomain

@Pandora said in Consent in Gaming:

Remember when roleplaying used to be roleplaying, and organic RP happened without being pre-screened and pre-scripted, and none of us died from keeping it IC?

For every good thing you can say about those days, I can name at least one bad.

Because yes, I remember it.

It worked when people let it work, when people wanted it to work, when people worked together to make it work.

I don't know what changed that people decided that it couldn't work without rules and code and things that made it more like asking permission to get a cookie than "yar, I raid the cookies, I am the cookie king, muahahaha!" Though when I phrase it like that I can imagine a few reasons why someone would want to shut that down.

I do miss those days for rose-colored nostalgia, but realistically we were struggling with our era's own social and consent situations.

Now excuse me, but I have cookies to plunder.

@Kestrel said in Do you care about other people's music?:

@Pandora said in Do you care about other people's music?:

Please never ask me to listen to anything though, I can't get those 2-5 minutes back so the answer will always be no, and I will resent you for making me crush your fleeting hope.

Hi please listen to this song it reminds me of you

I don't need these 2-5 minutes of my life back. That was a blast from the past.

@Ganymede said in PC vs Player Assumptions:

@Thenomain said in PC vs Player Assumptions:

coughDoorscough

Or the Chase system.

But combat? Man, someone doesn't get combat 100% correct and it's like you pissed on their puppy while kicking it into the mouth of an orc.

These games need more chase scenes.

Alright, enough of my thoughts are pulled together to comment on this part.

@Auspice said in Staff scrutiny during CGen:

1. What does your character love?
2. What does your character hate?

I often don't know. I play to find this out. If this creates a flat character that I can't engage with I don't think that this is the problem of the game or game staff. Someone can convince me that these two questions are critical for playing a character, but I will do a complete 180° on the third one:

3. Why did your character join the Stargate program?

Or as @Ominous summarizes: "Why are you here?"

If that question can't even be answered in some form or another, then how does anyone know what your character's engagement with the game will be?

Sometimes you do have to convince those around you that you're going to be a responsible citizen. Love this question. A+, would answer again.

@Arkandel

"What is your character concept?"

I was going to mention this as the other question I love as being a to-the-point way to get an early gauge on a character that is—and let's not ignore this point—not yours on a game—and this is also important—that is.

So keeping the questions as short jumping-off points is amazing.

For inspiration: Epic Rap Battles of History - Fast Food

@insomniac7809

I am slightly curious about this "TS Mystery" genre.

... Oh, wait, there's the comma. Hahahaha, my bad.

@Arkandel said in How can everyone play the same game?:

Once you have an idea, a vision for the kind of MU* you want to create... what needs to be done and what are some good ways to effectively communicate something locked in your head first to other potential staff members then to (heavens forbid) your players so everyone on roughly the same wave length?

Something I haven't seen since Aether: Have a test at the end of chargen.

It might be surprising that I'm advocating hoops to jump through, but if you make it mild then this way you can make sure that players aren't skimming, or if they are skimming then they recognize that this particular thing is important.

I know a lot of people who say if people don't know everything then that's on them. That's fine. I'm not saying they are wrong. Yes, even "we won't hand-hold" is a policy decision.

But man did we almost never get any confusion on Aether for what it was about, or what the various races and factions were about. They weren't even hard questions, by design, but forced people to be aware how the pre-wiki was laid out and that they could rely on the help of their fellow players.

"How many magic types can elves learn?"
"How many weeks idle until we put a character on ice?"
"When did Aether split from Earth?"

Five questions and you're out.

@bored said in How can everyone play the same game?:

so long as you're logged in, using the game resources, and adhering to policy, you are absolutely playing the same game

Then this is your answer. This was @surreality's answer too, and some of the conversation in the thread so far could be considered, "How do you make sure everyone is adhering to policy?" Or, "What kind of policy helps?" Hell, @Ghost mentioned the kind of "RP Types" that are academic and yet feed into the concept of what is the game about.

you really can't filter them out

Except you can.

Staff is always capable of showing someone the door.

A constant or blatant ignoring of game's theme, setting, or intent is a valid reason to show someone the door. If you don't have respect for the game, you shouldn't be playing it. (Or running it. God, the number of times I've seen staff who lack respect outright. I could write a book.)

Sure we can get into the "but I can always return" discussion about Tor and VPNs, but at that point you're not playing the game.

@surreality

That’s fair, and I give myself an out in that last sentence. Because there are many reasons not to expect privacy, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try, or demand, or work toward it.

“Oh well!” is a terrible attitude.

@L-B-Heuschkel

I'm honestly surprised and relieved someone taking my anti-background stance—sprinkled with vitriol—honestly. Thank you.

Almost exclusively when I say why I don't feel comfortable (i.e., don't want to) write a background it's taken as if I'm telling staff that I don't respect them. It could be my approach, but I haven't found an approach that doesn't end up with "do it or you don't get to play". Fair enough; their game, their rules.

And I'm not talking about a background on a wiki page, something that I do for the benefit of those curious. This would be a writing exercise, and that would be fun because you're doing it because you want to. Like this was a hobby or something.

No, I'm talking about the background and other chargen-level hoops that gets stored in staff-only tools. If the games you're playing on has staff poking in the brain of your character to make things happen then...wow, buy them a cookie!

—

Back to the topic more directly, the punishment of my not following the rules is banishment. It's the gate to enact with someone's crafted space.

I'm not saying it's good or bad (for me it's bad because I don't RP to write, I RP to interact with other people's mental spaces), it's just no different than telling someone they can keep playing if they write an essay about what they did.

And just as likely to change anyone's approach about anything.

@L-B-Heuschkel

On AetherMUX, we had a test proving that you read the setting wiki. It was short and it was easy and it was also a chargen punishment, but if you passed it your bg could be anything that made any amount of sense. "I am an elf from the Gorge of Bliss come to town to learn how to trade fish because I've never seen a fish in my life."

Of course, I can find fault with my own argument: "Is it a punishment? Really?"

A punishment is because you did something wrong and need to be corrected. But when the outcome of doing something wrong (cyber-stalking) is the same as not following a barrier to entry (write a background of at least 3000 characters), what kind of difference is there?

@surreality said in Punishments in MU*:

One earns and loses privileges.

I'm missing the point where not earning and losing is different in this case.

I promise this will be my last domination of this thread for now:

@saosmash said in Punishments in MU*:

@Thenomain What is the distinction you are trying to make between an explanation and an argument? Is an argument not essentially an explanation of a point with persuasive intention?

Yes.

Exactly.

Some people are trying to argue their method, while other people are trying to explore beliefs and methodologies, and I find the former makes the latter more difficult.

Calling this "intellectualism" (and implying "toxic") may have been unfair, but I'm frustrated.

Or to put it into pictures:

@Tinuviel said in Punishments in MU*:

At least when you're banned you actually wanted to be there...

Who doesn't want to be on Mars?

Fair enough.

@Tinuviel said in Punishments in MU*:

@Thenomain said in Punishments in MU*:

Who doesn't want to be on Mars?

Look, just because the air I'm breathing right now is 70% smoke doesn't mean I want no air at all.

There's air, it's just very thin and almost completely toxic.

(ob. Soapbox joke here)

@Tinuviel said in Punishments in MU*:

@Thenomain said in Punishments in MU*:

@Tinuviel said in Punishments in MU*:

@Thenomain said in Punishments in MU*:

Who doesn't want to be on Mars?

Look, just because the air I'm breathing right now is 70% smoke doesn't mean I want no air at all.

There's air, it's just very thin and almost completely toxic.

(ob. Soapbox joke here)

That's not air, that's an atmosphere. There's a difference.

...

Yup. That's what a straw looks like, alright.

Ta.

I can't see Fate for Fallout; Fate is used for high adventure and estimating systems. Fallout is a game where I would expect to be almost dead most of the time.

@Coin said:

Not to mention that it's pretty trivial to proctor a hog.

I don't know what you teach, but I can't imagine pigs are that easy to teach it to. They are pretty smart, but there are limits.

THE @THENOMAIN PRINCIPLE goes on to say that it's fine to introduce supplements as long as the player with only the core book is not at a severe disadvantage without them. I don't exactly know what "disadvantage" means here, but it could mean being locked out of role-play opportunities because you don't know the setting or rules introduced whole-cloth later on, or it could mean missing out on character builds that make the core-book builds useless.

In the case of 7th Sea, e.g., this could mean don't assume everyone knows that the Queen of England has bone cancer and is going to die if that information was introduced in the England books.

If a player wants to build something from an expansion, tho, they need to read the effing book.