I'm no good at politics. I'm barely good at social maneuvering, and mostly only when under duress which results in stress for myself and those involved.
It's not that I don't have good stories to tell, but they're all by association with people who do enjoy or are good at politics or social maneuvering, or when these two things aren't important and people are letting everyone be themselves.
No picture of Starbucks' Westeros branch yet? Shame on y'all.
@Arkandel said in MU Things I Love:
Before I close this, I wanted to give a bit shoutout to @Thenomain. He's one of the people we are taking for granted and whose efforts have really made a huge difference. He's coded his heart out so many times and we - collectively - haven't given him his due until we've actually needed someone to make sure we have a game to play on, who would spend countless hours making it even possible to do so.
If you're going to single me out, I'd like to single out people who are not as vocal and who do not spend their social capital with reckless abandon as I do:
@Chime
@faraday
@Sparks
@Glitch
@Cobaltasaurus
@Volund
@Griatch
This is far from a complete list and is only in the order that it came to mind. I am loud and presumptuous and constantly need talked down from getting upset about things that aren't critical, things that don't need someone to die on their hill. (Except ANSI abuse. I will take this one to my grave.)
We can also thank TinyTIM, the first Mush. We can thank the first TinyMUD. We can also thank all the RPG and TV/movie companies who have not sued us or sent us C&D letters.
Really, if I leave this hobby tomorrow I will not be disappointed if nobody remembers anything I've done; I don't do this to make a name or to be thanked. It's nice, but I know as well as the rest of you that I don't usually deserve it. I do it because I want people to enjoy themselves.
I largely stopped enjoying myself in this hobby about four years ago. That what I do can help other people from hitting this point is pretty much all that keeps me going.
Keep going, you crazy creatives.
@Ghost said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
He's right. Nobody memorizes phone numbers anymore.
Remember when all those numbers you didn't know where in this giant book, and if you wanted to call someone whose number you didn't commit to memory or write in a smaller book you had to remember where you put the book, possibly remember their street address, remember to carry the book near to the phone so that you could dial the phone, wait for it to dial and then maybe, maybe you could get done what you were trying to do?
I thought about this procedure and I wasn't even done remembering it before part of my brain said, "This is taking too long!" That's right, not only did I lose the skill to something that is much more convenient, but I've lost the ability to be patient enough to remember what it was like. And it's not like looking up numbers in the phonebook was horrible; you'd chat with family or listen to the TV while doing it.
I swear that we've given ourselves ADD.
And if you dialed the wrong number, the exchange would be fairly pleasant. "Oops, wrong number." / "That's okay." / "Thanks, bye." I once recently had someone call me to chew me out for dialing the wrong number, and it wasn't me. He dialed the wrong number to complain! (More likely it was a faked called ID, but the idea that someone yells at anyone for wrong numbers makes me sigh.)
I've always found that it's far too easy to kill without consequence.
In a tabletop that's not a problem, as the game is tailored to the table. In a larger game, it introduces the first edges of PvP that are hard to keep from slippery-sloping to its logical conclusion.
...when the person in front of you in line at the coffee house orders 9 different drinks during morning rush.
That person is almost assuredly an intern or a secretary.
I am learning the love of online ordering for pickup.
It should have:
The player things, including web link, should be under: &finger.<item>.
All lookups should be on the game object as &finger.<item> as well. e.g.:
&finger.position finger frob <ff>=get( %0/position )
&finger.web_link finger frob <ff>=get( %0/finger.wiki )
Oh, and no "afinger" notification.
Oh, and no calling player data with u().
So I've modernized my mother, which took a long time but I think she's a lot happier now. She can use a computer without "technical" (read: user) errors 90% of the time, she has a smart TV and a subscription to Netflix, and one day we cut the cord, got her on DirectTV Now.
Well, AT&T has been jerking around the subscribers, so I spent some time looking for a good replacement with her channel list requirements: Animal Planet, Discovery, MSNBC, etc. And you know what the cheapest solution was?
Spectrum.
Yes, that Spectrum. Getting her back on cable television was the cheapest option for what she wanted. Even after tax and other "broadcast fees" and nonsense.
I was honestly surprised. Yes, it's a hair cheaper because they're also her ISP, but ISPs are raking people over the coals almost to the level of, well, AT&T. And because Spectrum has joined the 21st century, she doesn't need a cable box. It's all streamed now, baby!
And she didn't blink. The idea of uprooting her current subscription for another would have scared the crap out of her five, ten years ago. I did the difficult thing of finding out how to cancel DirectTV Now, but it was 10 minutes between "sign up for Spectrum again", "bye AT&T", and "How do I find the channels?" Bam, done, wallop!
I'm so proud of my mother.
If she would only stop texting me the weather.
If I had even one "she said", I would not have sat on my hands, but as it was, I had one person reporting on behalf of another, on four others, and none of those four were willing to explain the situation themselves. It was quite literally "he said that she said".
I don't feel insulted by anyone thinking it was the wrong move. I felt terrible at the time, but of me, Lamia and Troy, none of us felt that we could do anything, and we did throw someone off the game for things that happened on another game and we said, "Nope, not here, goodbye." The difference there was that we had someone who talked to us, we had a trail back to the events. Without that trail, without a reasonable connection, what do you do?
You do your best. And you own up to it.
I think Cowboy Bebop is still very watchable. The music is still incredible. The animation style is waning. The story and world are still solid.
@faraday said in PC antagonism done right:
Antagonism makes for good stories, but in a MU* environment I think it's a lost cause. Mostly for the reasons you mentioned, but it's even more than that. Let's pretend that there's a totally mature player who won't start OOC drama, needs no encouragement to play antagonism, and is an awesome RPer. I don't want that person playing my character's antagonist, I want them playing my friend. Because 95% of MU scenes are social in nature, and who wants to hang out with their antagonist? Antagonists are best metered out in small doses, and that runs contrary to what you want to be doing with your awesome RPers.
While I know I'm five internet-years behind on this thread, now, but I did want to say that this kind of player is exactly who I want to play against.
The word "antagonist" was unfortunate in its connotation to this discussion, but let's look at President Roslin and General Adams's relationship. They had aggressively different agendas through most of the early seasons, and in many ways they were antagonistic. Dr. Baltar was almost textbook antagonist, and your player description would thrive in that role.
In Amber, antagonists share the same space. In World of Darkness, you have people against you because it's Tuesday; a game of Vampire can be chock full of antagonists you can't kill even without bringing in the groups that are usually thought of when someone says "antagonist".
We don't need Cylons, we don't need Shadow, we don't need Sabbat, we just need two people whose goals oppose, and for this I want a million of the kind of person you describe.
@GangOfDolls said in PC antagonism done right:
Antagonism is best when its motivations in the character are pure.
Using this as a jumping-off point for some thoughts...
When filming the pilot to Firefly, Adam Baldwin was having some problems getting into the Jayne character until Joss gave him the bit of advice: Jayne thinks he's the hero of the story.
While I don't think Jayne's motivations are pure, but he thinks he knows the world to work a certain way, and it comes to a head where he is threatened to be spaced. He wasn't actually spaced, just the threat of it was enough to pull him back from destructive.
Two things happen here that I don't see happen a lot on Mu*s:
Most RPGs aren't set up for these scenarios. Maybe Promethean (WoD) and it's keystone system. Maybe Fate Core. Maybe one or two others, but these aren't the stories we think of when we think of playing a tabletop RPG, and that's mostly what dominates this hobby.
Dune fans better sign a rock solid prenup, because we’ve been here before....
With watch, you can opt out entirely. I find this a fair compromise.
REAL MEN ARE SERIOUS ABOUT TITS AND VIOLENCE.
Really, for as much chiding as other music oriented subcultures get, the heavy metal crowd is just as childish. A biker dude's tattoo fantasy becomes naked so that she can kill an orb.
Good music, tho.
@Alamias said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
@Arkandel Blame @Thenomain and @Miss-Demeanor. They mentioned 7th Sea.
Because we are awesome.
--
another legit edit:
@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
Just...Some people like to skew shit either on purpose, or through nasty habit.
There is a point where people have to stop just wishing that things are different and start pushing change for the better. I think that you are at this point. Name names. You don't have to be a jackass for defending your views or pointing out the fallacies of "popular clique-heavy posters", but you've been dancing around this for your last three or possibly four posts. It seems that you think that it's important, so say something.
@tragedyjones said:
@Thenomain said:
@Coin said:
It's fucking raining and I'm wearing my brand new leather sneakers. Fuck.
#firstworldproblem
He doesn't live in the first world!
Then he should stop pretending to be important by having first world problems.
@EmmahSue said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
Also, HR says he's working on the Stanley Parable achievement for MSB. He's not likely to rejoin anytime soon (I believe someone wondered, up above somewhere).
ES
If we don't see him in three more years (the achievement is five), I will personally drive down there and have lunch with you all. That isn't a threat, that's a promise.
On agreeing with @BigDaddyAmin ::
Western World concerning the Eastern World, "Let them eat cake."
Hey, Marie, they can't afford cake. They are not like you and never will be. Using them for their labor (in the analogy, really the land and oil) is the problem.
This cake that you want them to eat, you cannot also have this cake at the same time.
(Mixing metaphors is my specialty.)
