Best posts made by Three-Eyed Crow

I think perception here does often get skewed. There are players/staffers I like whose persona here irritates me. And people I think come off far better (or at least pithier) here than they do on-game. If you don't actually know another player/staffer on-game (and I'd say I don't know very many of the other posters here, despite the incestuous nature of the MU community), all you have to go on is whatever they put forward in their board persona. And if they pop off like an asshat, welp, that's all I have to go on. I also think certain posters get far more latitude than others, but that's message board culture and it's certainly not unique to MSB.

@Ghost
Oh, yes, bonfires over petty shit are common and usually silly.

I think you were often guilty of this in The 100 thread, actually, seemingly over stuff that happened on another game entirely...I think Fifth World? It's one of my text book - Why Bitching Threads Should Be Separate from Ad Threads examples. But, again, that's kind of the nature of message board culture. I read those posts, found them dumb, and judged the game on its merits (it wasn't for me and I didn't stick, but I'm not a hater. I think some of the complaints about it were overblown while others were entirely legit.

For the petty shit, I trust other readers to do that, too. I'm often wrong about this. I think most people are overly incredulous about things they shouldn't be, and not nearly cynical enough about stuff they should. But, again, that's people, and you get that wherever people outside a friend circle interact.

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

@Three-Eyed-Crow Nevertheless, people should be pointing others to this thread and the other on the down-low, because it helps to be informed.

Oh, I agree. I was familiar with Custodius' reputation, but wouldn't have known he was Max without this thread. It's helped me in how I approach the game and made his shenanigans more obvious, and I am grateful for the community here in that. Forewarned is forearmed. It's just incredibly frustrating to see so many players, many of whom (frankly) are simply less jaded and more willing to give people second/third/fourth/umpteen chances than I am drawn into his web of manipulative bullshit.

At a certain point, you need to own your shit. These are, for better or worse, social games, and how you treat other players matters. If you consistently manipulate people, emotionally abuse them OOC, cheat, and lie, I am not going to have time for you in my pretendy funtime hobby. I do not see how this is mean. I do not see how this is unfair. I am perfectly willing to give people second chances if they show long-term evidence they have changed and own up to their mistakes. I 100% believe people can change, but I also 100% believe real internal change is about the hardest thing a person can do. It takes brutal emotional inventory that most people do not want to sit down and do. So I'll forgive readily, forget nothing, and take people as I find them, but with the full understanding that sometimes you find very shitty people.

Props to @Glitch and @EmmahSue for their work on this, and MAJOR props to @Arkandel for stepping up to take it. There were a few possibilities that filled me with dread. @Arkandel was not among them.

I have no idea what that thing @WTFE posted is.

@Wizz
What's funny to me about Cersei's arc is that she's a much better character on the show, imo, than she is in the books. I feel like most of the characters became less interesting and nuanced with the adaptation to varying degrees (which is pretty normal for when something gets translated like this), but Cersei in the books always struck me as shallow and kind of dumb. I disliked her more and became less interested in her once we got into her PoV chapters. On the show, she's gained a depth that's helped salvage a lot of the plot contortions this season for me. A lot of the credit is due to Lena Headey's performance, since the individual beats she's had aren't hugely different than they are in the novels. Great stuff. Hoping she gets an Emmy out of this before the series is out.

@surreality said in Original Sci-Fi?:

Since this seems to be the #1 pastime of sci-fi games, I consider them an unfriendly environment on the whole, often to the point of active hostility and ugly condescension in the same way the people who are obscure comics lore experts railing about how so-and-so is 'doing it wrong' in their portrayal of a character are obnoxious, or it would be obnoxious for me to OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG SO STUPID DID YOU SEE THAT HEADPIECE?!?!?! WHAT SERVING GIRL CAN AFFORD THOSE PEARLS; THIS IS CRAZY! at people enjoying an episode of Reign, and modeling something they do on an L&L game on that dubiously accurate ensemble.

If you don't think people do this on L&L games, you have never played an L&L game.

There are spottily-informed theme dictators everywhere (and people playing with zero adherence to anything resembling theme that make them feel empowered, also everywhere).

Maybe this differs on games with Attractiveness stats? IDK, I don't play those. But pretty much every character is soap opera-level attractive and that's fine/not really remarked upon unless someone is overbearing about it OOC one way or another. I've always assumed we're dealing with worlds where characters are actor/model-pretty and that's just normal in the cinematic reality we play in.

I also don't really know what you do with...people who just keep posting and posting, long after their point is made, to the point where it pushes out any kind of other conversation. I think it's pretty clear when this happens but there's not much you can do beyond just not engaging.

The fact is, while I enjoyed Lovecraft stories in high school, he's not an author who's ever held much attachment to me. Same with Orson Scott Card. I liked Ender's Game when I read it as juvenile fiction but it's not part of my personal canon.

I own "Thriller" on CD, it was one of the first albums I owned, and I think it's a work of great 20th century art. It was formative to me in a lot of ways and those are still some awesome tracks that there's no way to divorce from what pop music is today.

Still think Michael Jackson is a child molester who was hugely enabled and protected by the music industry throughout this life.

Not sure what to do with this, ultimately. I had experiences of Michael Jackson music that really are imprinted on my psyche in that way music gets with people when they hear it when they're young, particularly high school-age. I can't divorce it from this and it's probably the "art from artist" thing I most struggle with.

I guess my point is, there are a lot of artists it's very easy for me to "cancel" on a personal level. I'll never give Woody Allen money again but I only kinda liked "Midnight in Paris" and never got his appeal otherwise, so whatever. I'll never pay to see a Michael Fassbender of Sean Penn movie again but that's no great loss to me, I don't view them as culturally necessary and they don't speak to me in any particular way.

I have a lot of sympathy for the peopel to whom Lovecraft was formative and who're trying to reconcile his being a racist asshole, I guess is my point, because I'm stil trying to work out what I feel OK consuming and having genuine affection for and what I don't anymore. I'm still trying to separate what I think of Michael Jackson as a human who I think did awful things to other humans versus what I think of what he created and will probably continue trying for awhile. This does not feel easy with a thing that has large cultural and personal impact.

I realize some Mushers don't use spawn windows but I struggle to imagine functioning without them, and shifting channels to other tabs/rooms ala discord and slack just feels like that, only less work on my end.

@surreality said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

If I had a nickel for every time somebody told me to 'just use WoD or don't do it' -- which is a system I think is actually crap-awful for MU -- I could have paid all of my hosting bills for the entire time I was doing dev.

I actively avoid these games because I'm disinterested in WoD as a setting and very disinterested in buying 2 (or more - and yes I know I can pirate these easily but, ethics aside, it's still a lot of reading theme and setting material I am actively disinterested in) RPG books I will never use for any other purpose other than playing a game I do not know if I will like or not.

I don't say this to be contrary, I am well aware that WoD is a very popular genre in MUs and doing a game in it will get you a ready-made audience. But I am part of another audience and I don't think I'm alone, so I'm presenting the opposing point. I feel like it's less about catering to The Audience, and more about catering to an easily-corralled audience, rather than one that's more diffuse and less focused.

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Maybe it's just my perception, but before, when someone did something I thought was just fucking stupid I could downvote and move on. Anyone could mouse over who downvoted and see that I did and thus didn't like what was said.

I do miss having a mild way to roll my eyes at someone's stupidity, just like upvotes are a mild way to agree, but people got so twisted up about the downvotes I feel like they were more harm than good (I never minded that downvotes showed my name, perhaps not surprisingly).

I think just disengaging from a subject once a piece has been said rather than battering it into the ground until it's a beaten remnant of what once was a dead horse might help the 'dogpiling,' I hint in a deeply unsubtle fashion.

@Gingerlily said:

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
I finally finished SoA. That was a long binge. A painful one at the end. I think I might have gotten more out of it in a non-binge, watching it weekly over years. All together like that the last seasons are just a -world of pain- -for everyone- that -goes on and on-. So I am in agreement with you. I think the last two seasons definitely could have been one season and still handled the major things that needed to happen. Also that side non-Hamlet-allegorical characters just SUFFERED ALL THE PAIN for no apparent reason. If there is a moral to this story message received I will not be joining any outlaw motorcycle gangs. It's a bad plan.

It was hard to watch the last season of "Sons" even weekly, because of all those extra-long episodes. And because I'd inevitably fall a couple weeks behind and do two or three at a time, and I'd want to reach through the TV and strangle an editor. I suspect I'll like it more upon rewatch. Gemma is still an awesome character and it makes me sad Katey Sagal never got an Emmy for that role. The second season in particular is still one of my favorites.

THE WIRE IS AWESOME. Last season isn't as good as the first four, but it only suffers by comparison. It was all filmed on location in Baltimore and the head writers were both long-time residents, but it's definitely Baltimore As American City Metaphor.

I'm all about slow-burn, and frankly I tend to take someone wanting to go ALL IN AFTER ONE SCENE as a sign I should pull back from that character as potential romantic RP. We're just clearly going to want different things out of it and would both end up frustrated.

I get a decent amount of random RP on Arx. I seek it out because I have free time. The public grid and randomscenes (XP if you tag certain random RP partners in a given week) help drive it, as does the large population.

I'm not singing the unqualified praises of these scenes. Some of them are tedious and if I'm not enjoying them I have '5 poses and out' rule. It's less about wasting my time then not engaging in RP I don't find fun. Then again, some of them are entirely fun and interesting and sometimes I make new IC friends. It ebbs and flows. I still have to cultivate the scenes that are meaty by seeking them out, which I feel like I have to be pretty aggressive about. I'm probably better classified as a player who prefers a certain amount of control over one who prizes verisimilitude of environment, though I think I actually like a mix ideally. Plentiful bar RP is not a magical utopia or a cure-all for hobby malaise, at least not for me, though I do enjoy it enough to keep at it. I do think getting it regularly is more a factor of having a big game than anything else, though. Like, I plant myself in public on a game with 100 people logged on, there's at least a better-than-average chance one of them will maybe RP with me. I do this on a game with 30 people logged on? The chances of crickets increases, until it no longer becomes a useful way to get a scene when you want one.

@Cupcake said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Arkandel I will say you are doing yourself a disservice by avoiding Hidden Figures. I actually think it's a crime that Taraji Henson wasn't nominated for Best Actress.

HIDDEN FIGURES SO GOOD!!!!!!!

I also loved The Arrival, and it makes me optimistic for the future of brainy sci-fi movies. If either of those won Best Picture, I'd be Very Pleased. I don't think it'll happen, though, so I'm just happy they're getting some love.

La La Land is next on my list (I've heard nothing but good things), even if I was underwhelmed by the soundtrack when I jammed to it on Spotify.

I do want to make clear that I spent a not-insignificant amount of time last night in PMs with @Arkandel and @Ganymede about my issues with how the United Heroes thread move was handled, felt like they listened to my concerns, and worked quickly and hard to resolve them. I do appreciate that and I think it's how moderation should work, and I don't want that to get lost because it was going on while the whole Hitler thread thing was reaching max Godwin's Law.

I'm glad the rules are being clarified, though, because oh gosh I hope no one is arguing they're crystal clear and consistent right now.

What I want. Demonstration of a very basic grasp of theme and where their character fits into it. Minimally basic. If you’re trying to app a Lord of the Rings-style wizard on a Game of Thrones MUSH, you want to have a conversation about why that won’t work upfront. If you’re trying to app a space smuggler on a game where all of the RP is centered on the starship Enterprise around Federation officer PCs, same deal, people will try to do it and it’s easier to hash out those issues before stuff is happening on the grid. I don’t think this requires more than a couple paragraphs, though I generally write more for myself as I play the character. Also, if you’re apping a person who fit a pre-existing role in a military hierarchy/noble house/pack or survival group, you want to think about how they got there and what they do in it, though you can hash that out through conversation with your faction head as well as you can in bg.

I’ve staffed on games that used backgrounds as a weeding process for handing out feature character roles, and required fairly detailed write-ups (a couple pages in a Word doc is my view of detailed, I never went in for the novella-length games). I’ve staffed on games with no background requirements. The quality of RP, on average, was not terribly different. CG definitely isn't an effective gate for quality or how well or poorly a player will do with a role.

I have more difficulties with +sheet skill and stat mechanics than I do with backgrounds, because it’s very easy to do stuff ‘wrong’ in a way that’ll impact your play long-term simply due to unfamiliarity (I can bang out a BG in a theme I’m not ultra-versed in in a weekend, but sheets are where I tend to bail on a new game). Though ideally staff is liberal about re-speccs for newbs.

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

I know the list of people that don't like me, or that I've had spats with, and truly believe that the inability to sit down across a table and hash shit out like normal people makes things difficult.

The difference between how people act IRL, when they actually have to own their shit to some degree (if, indeed, they own their shit, this isn't common IRL either, but it's an environment where you can be physically punched, which helps sometimes), is indeed staggeringly different than the way they act online when they're just being forum edgelords.

Anyway, we have no beef tangible, if this was a vagueblog at me. I actually said in my unhinged ALL-CAPS rant that I don't think you're a bad person. I do think your lack of self-awareness is pretty damn staggering a lot of the time, so maybe stay away from that as a criticism of other people. Or don't, I'm the boss of no one.

ETA: I meant every word of the unhinged ALL-CAPS rant and own it happily. Don't misunderstand.

@phatdenny said in Reporting Roadblocks: Denial, Fear, Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, etc.:

@surreality I just thought I would note that I can't even count the times that the staffers thought themselves approachable and diplomatic, but in reality they were so damned defensive they'd harangue you for hours and were liable to talk smack about you behind your back.

Creating an atmosphere where players actually feel complaints will be taken seriously is probably the most important part of this. There are a lot of reasons people don't report harassment, some of them personal and beyond your control, but you absolutely can control what you tolerate when you see it and what kind of tone you try and set. I think all of us can be more aware of the atmosphere on the games we're on and speak up and complain, even if we aren't the direct targets of harassment. Maybe especially then. I don't think it's on the person being fucked with to push back, it's on the game and the people around them to have their backs. These assholes thrive where their behavior is excused and normalized.