Posts made by Thenomain

@il-volpe

And this is the rub. It seems there are two or three common definitions of "entitlement", but the one used in the article was most certainly the one your ex was using.

For example, I disagree with House of Cards' Kevin Spacey, as the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights entitles its citizens to quite a lot. I'll agree with Joss that investment in fiction doesn't entitle fans to demand certain behaviors of the authors, but I'll also agree with Gaiman (and you) that the expectations of your audience is incredibly important.

Really, had I not been writing on a tablet at the time, I might have gone on to say that the originally linked article was pretty horrible because it was comparing two things which are not exclusive, using loaded link-bait phrasing. "Chocolate: It's poison! And delicious!" Er, yes, these two things are true. And? And?!

I think the thing @Coin and really Gaiman talks about is fan interaction, fan support, fan conversation, and not fan entitlement. In the article (yes, I read the article), Gaiman and Wheedon are talking about a matter of extremes, and my take-away was that there is a point where ones investment becomes entitlement. Investment good. Entitlement bad. Fire bad, tree pretty.

Note to Self: @Coin thinks being right three times is "a lot".

Prediction: This thread will be about how entitlement is bad and specific examples about how people have acted in an entitled manner. No debate about if entitlement is bad will take place.

Exception: Ganymede will make a probative statement about either definition or practice, and will largely be ignored.

@Misadventure said in RL things I love:

@surreality said in RL things I love:

I am keeping the shit out of "you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max" forever.

I prefer Swiftian principles.

Straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked satire, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so.

This is true. If @Cobaltasaurus has a choice between "on fire" and "not on fire", she will choose the former.

@Roz

I know you've been here for this over and over again, but it bears repeating: Staff is to facilitate fun, not beholden to it. This thread at this point could stand a link to Brus' Five Pillars of Good Staffing, as well.

@skew

So you like red because they're Klingons? Figures.

@Sunny

<again retracted, as tho he's trying to stop the topic and let the conversation move on, tho this time he's going to comment that some game-runners can't take the hint even if you dropped it on their head>

<retracted, possibly redacted>

@Shlappy

I'm cautiously optimistic. The lead doesn't seem able to take criticism well. Er, at least not on a board about criticism.

(n.b., this is exactly why I don't lead; I suck at taking criticism)

@Auspice

I've been sincerely wondering if there's really anything more to it than that.

@Sunny

Allow me again to apologize. I had something to say and your post was a jumping off point. I am pretty passionate about making the game an inclusive experience. What I've seen in these increasingly long years points away from some higher levels of caution and planning.

@Sunny said in Making a MU* of your own:

I always, always try and build-with-a-group.

Yeah, but your anecdote is one about you. The group, because you. Letting in a trickle, because you.

I'm sorry, I'm not intending to point out anyone as an example, but what I said wasn't about feeling good about being staffers and building a game with care and deliberation. Do it that way, sure, whatever, but that's not the direction I was going in.

Masquerade, Dark Metal, Haunted Memories, The Reach, these are games that started about players. Let's open before we're done, because players. Let's cut corners, because players. Boom, kapow, splat, staff forced to build things on the fly because players, players having to take up the slack for staff because players, we're all in it together because we don't exactly know what the hell we're doing or what will happen when we're done with it. Organic. Messy.

Involving. And involving means invested.

I have some thoughts about how to do this without losing control (hint: Barf Forth Vision) but, nnrgh, Sunny, your explanation sounds so sterile. Not in a bad way, which is why I apologize for using your post as the one I grab and run with, it's just ... there.

I don't care what you believe. Just believe. (A corny line, well-delivered by Ron Glass.)

@Lotherio said in Making a MU* of your own:

[let] players contribute

Emphasis mine. I think this is the key of all keys. Though I was personally disappointed when Haunted Memories locked the sphere information wiki pages from editing, I also noticed that the clarity and usefulness of that information also dropped steadily, in part because the administration gave themselves much more to do, but also because the players were no longer involved in world-building.

Hey staffers, you don't have to let players do whatever, but if they can say, "This Dairy Queen was the source of Dream Nettle Twisters," then this only adds to the depth of the world. That depth makes things a whole lot harder to keep track of, but you already have players who are keeping track of it for you and all you have to do is let the players tell you when it's causing a problem before stepping in.

It's not a utopia, but dang is it compelling.

You know, this just occurred to me.

All of the games I know that were more successful than their kin kind of had one thing in common:

• People were playing on them when they were being built.

Not staff, but players. Hey y'all, come on by, let's socialize and talk about the game and play a little. Sure, you build this, you build that, etc.

Many of them were migration games. "Hey people I know I'm making this game over there because I love this game but I want to do something new so come check it out." Many of them were like that, the more I think about it, but I believe all of them were never soft-opened, were never carefully constructed then opened, they were just ... open.

Something I'm going to be thinking about.

So, is Telltale Games' The Walking Dead a TV show? Is it a game? Is it a visual novel? Is it some of the best, most compelling story-telling and pacing I've seen in or out of the interactive realm?

Season 3 was announced.

Teenaged Clem + Toddler AJ.

Wallet is at the ready.

I just read something that is pretty personally horrible.

"Java is everywhere. On your phone, in your computer, on your Blu-Ray player, even in your car!"

I won't be able to sleep well tonight.

Follow-Up:

The Chrome browser does not support NPAPI plug-ins and therefore will not run all Java content. Switch to a different browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari on Mac) to run the Java plug-in.

Okay, let's try this, then:

In Windows 10, the Edge browser does not support plug-ins and therefore will not run Java. Switch to a different browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer 11) to run the Java plug-in. Select the More Actions option located at the top right of the Edge browser and click on Open with Internet Explorer.

Oh, phew, okay, I'll sleep easier.