Okay, I'm opening myself up to a lot of comments and I know this, and I'm going to try and keep my fragile ego in check:

How much should I charge to code for a game I'm not volunteering for?

The Mechanipus Exodus is almost over, and I have done more volunteer work in the last three weeks than I have for any single game in the same period of time, and I know that a lot of other people have done the same in their time.

I don't want to not help games set up or fix issues, but I want to reclaim some of my time. Starting to charge real money seems like one of the only recourses besides a straight up "no" which I am well aware is always on the table.

I jokingly gave someone this list, then I thought that it's not that bad of a jumping-off point. Is this ridiculous? How could this be tweaked? Thanks ahead of time, everyone:

Game setup from scratch: $20
CofD Core installation: $50
Each additional sphere or major book already coded: $20
Major code debugging and house-rules tweaking: about $20/hr.
Minor code debugging and house-rules tweaking: Probably free
Pointers, Tips, and Advice to anyone who wants to do this on their own: Always free

Major project not listed here (new book/rules): $50-$150
Minor project not listed here (new book/rules, fun new system): $20-$50
Bug-fixing of something I did: Free, because yeah, it's mine right?

Time taken to do this: I will try to meet your requirements, but my schedule is my own. That said, try not to pay me before something is done or with this understanding.

I personally would never use these as non-negotionable, especially if I streamline the installations to a point where I could get the entire CofD core gameline books in at one go, but I feel that my time is worth more than trying to get all of this done on my days off instead of, e.g. RPing, but I've hit a wall and can't think of other options.

Thanks for reading.

--

edit:

After everybody's amazing input, I'm settling right now on the above information.

I have tweaked a few of the prices, mostly having to do what falls into what category.

I have a Google Wallet at my expected email address: thenomain@gmail.com

While tips are welcome, I will feel very self-conscious if you don't tell me specifically what it's for.

Thanks to everyone in this hobby who cares about this hobby.

Someone had made a character called Guestronaut and I liked it so much that I wanted to make this every guest character.

Unfortunately I couldn't make this the default guest login without forcing everyone to type 'connect guestronaut' at the login screen.

We have guest characters now, if not guestronauts.

@bored

I see a future where people expected to self-moderate will use the rules as a way to feel validated in harshing on others.

I see this future because we've lived it.

On pretty much every game I've ever seen.

I like the intent, but it starts with people acting kinder to others than they have, or monitored by people with a more even keel (e.g. admins), in which case we won't need the precision rule-parade.

@faraday said in Make it fun for Me!:

good sportsmanship

This.

All of this.

More of this.

I don't care what the goal of your game is, without a sense of respect between players, players and staff, and staff and staff, it's going to be toxic.

I press this as a respect for the game, because that's a shared goal that gets outside the equally toxic idea about who is responsible for fun, like "fun" is this thing that we can define.

We cannot universally define fun. Trying is implausible. It's a fool's errand. We might as well define world peace.

We can, however, define each game. Most of this work is done by staff. What you get to decide, really the only thing you get to decide, is how you're going to interact with that game, if at all.

This is not a small task. Deciding how to treat others is a massive responsibility, and you will be judged by it. "Good Sportsmanship" is pretty damn close to a catch-all as I think we're going to see and I think includes and goes further than our favorite "Don't Be a Dick", so is more useful.

Or in summary: A+ Faraday. Would Quote Again.

I am in the process of encoding Promethean.

Correction: I am in the process of considering the non-Euclidean geometry that is the Transmutation power system.

Take me now, Yog-Shoggoth, and we shall visit the King in Yellow together.

In case anyone needed it, here's an excellent example of not only How Not To Be Civil, but how to do exactly what Admin Said Not To Do:

@kanye-qwest said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@ganymede Well, I did expect a response that was out of touch with reality. You got me there. Expectations fulfilled!

(eta: Admin, consider this another request from me to move the Hog Pit back into the Hog Pit. Thanks.)

@shincashay said in Let's talk about TS.:

@aria

I love nerds. I'm weak for nerds.

Same. Smarts and cleverness makes me weak in the nerds.

No, I'm Sparticus!

What Happened to WORA: It's around, somewhere, on a server we're still trying to reach. The site host went incommunicado for a long period of time and has since resurfaced. This puts our chances of recovering the information much better than it did several weeks ago.

Peverel has not been involved in WORA for quite some time, and I doubt he cares whether or not someone else makes a clone. WORA technically belongs to Lolth, but I doubt she cares if there a hundred WORAs out there.

I don't. When I overheard @Glitch and @EmmahSue mention "The Soapbox" as a name, it hit the right note.

WORA is vitrol, anger, sputum, like angry sex, so having a place, a more constructive kind of place without WORA's history of bang-on vile accuracies and just banging on would be a good idea. I approve.

@gangofdolls said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:

I have no idea what's going on with Reno-rebranding-to-Portland.

They were waiting on me to port the stuff over to the new host and tweak a few things. (I think @surreality set up the new wiki. Someone did.) The codebase is now ready for the new staff to clean house and update the grid. I suspect it's days instead of weeks.

Oh, and an ANSI-colored connect screen, because why not.

That is to say: Yes, finding people with the time and willingness to work on this hobby is what's rare. You are 100% correct. I would make it greater than 100% correct if that was a thing, so I'll make it "100% and a cookie."

--

edit: Come to think of it, it's kind of too bad that people dogpile into some games while other deserving games, such as that Horror Mu*, are constantly advertising.

Hey, this is my policy and I think it's probably just good practice in general:

If you want to friend me on Discord (or anywhere, really), include a note on how you know me or I'm going to deny it.

If you have and I denied/ignored it, contact me somewhere else.

I don't mind staying in contact with people, but I want to manage my contacts with notes how I know them!

Hopefully this helps everyone trying to stay in contact with anyone else.

@roz said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

@thenomain If you feel really strongly that there's something to excuse, you can just post up a log of the offending behavior on an appropriate forum post. Presumably it would speak for itself.

Now this is a reasonable request.

I'm not going to do it because it's done, over with, and it's convenient for my own emotional well-being that if you lot want to keep dogpiling me over it then you'll have to sit there smugly upvoting each other with being right.

And I don't care if you do.

Not because I don't care about what you think but because I want to move on.

I only brought it up OUT OF CONTEXT to explain ONE REASON FOR POSTING. I've entertained responses because I think everyone should have a chance to explain themselves.

Look, do what you want. Think what you want. I don't care.

I'm done.

Arx is run by people normally used to running a Mud, isn't it?

@Caryatid said in Arx- Gareth:

You're misrepresenting what happened.

This is what we call "a misunderstanding" and is exactly the time to go into what happened. If you're going to flaunt that you know but won't tell even him, that's a bit of a dick move, Cary. On a couple of levels.

@Cupcake

Believe it or not, but that's me. Always. I lash out against the "unfairness" of others, mostly because I think people who are actually being jerks should well know it.

(About half the people I consider good friends are those I've growled at before.)

There is no easy route out of it besides self-care. Breathe. Do things for you. If people don't enjoy you then fuck 'em.

But if I can say one thing, this is it:

If you're not enjoying yourself, then don't keep pushing yourself.

That way lies madness. I should know. I can talk in circles for hours about how this is a social hobby and therefore if I can't be social then I'm failing the hobby and blah blah blah. It's easy. It's not fun. It's insanity.

--

@Cupcake , I'm terrible at remembering people, but I've never thought of you as being one of the bad guys, can't imagine you being a poison. Those times I remember that it's you that I talked to, you've been pleasant and gentle. You're good people.

I don't like being posed at.

I like being posed with.

I like back and forth, walk and talk, witty repartee.

I like interrupting and being interrupted, backhanded remarks behind the conversation, the sense that anyone can jump in and change the direction of the scene by force of character will.

I like it organic.

It's rare I get this feeling when someone is composing their personalized paragraph in a larger book. I'm utterly kicked out of the mood when I have to wait ten minutes for the purple prose. I hate waiting knowing that I have absolutely no chance to make it more natural.

I have played against people who are so good at this that their every pose looks like an invitation to a wider story and I find myself writing paragraphs. People like @Emmahsue. They are the exceptions that prove the rule for me.

My poses tend to be short, but I try to make sure that they are packed, efficient, and evocative.

"You know you are done not when there is nothing more to add, but when there's nothing more to take away."

@silverfox said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:

@Apos said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:

It is simple. Don't think too much about your own character.

^^^ That, that, that.

Doesn’t. Work. Half. The. Time.

Sorry but it doesn’t. It is not a trivial thing for some people (for me people, but I’m not alone here) to just adjust to the group. If the group is being open then you go with the flow and it’s fun, but tell me if this has never happened to you:

[Appropriate Channel] You: Hey, what’s going on?
[Appropriate Channel] <silence>

There are other ways to try to insinuate yourself into scenes and groups, but there is a certain point where you give up, where you wonder if the problem is you, and if it is you what you can do about it. Welcome to the entryway to anxiety and depression, and if you don’t understand this then I am deeply, painfully jealous.

You say “That, that, that,” and I sigh, “No, no, no.” There is no easy solution, because the problem is partially about self-loathing, and pattern-finding, and otherwise sensible logic being applied where it shouldn’t. It’s not simple. God we wish it was.

Maybe I’m on the Spectrum, but I absolutely would take someone’s talking about A Knight’s Tale to OMG about Chaucer. I’d be sorry about interrupting someone else being excited about their thing to be excited about my thing, but the idea is that we’re sharing being excited, yes?

@auspice said in The Kitten Army (GIF Heavy):

@shelbeast said in Random links:

@insomnia Fine. You can buy me a chocolate butthole, then.

If someone has had their butthole bleached, would you use white chocolate?

I'm asking for a friend.