The only category of staff that, honestly, don't need to be player relations people are dedicated coders. If all they do is make the ones and zeros sit down and stand up as required, fine. But anyone in a player-facing role needs to be approachable and effective.
@skew What I'm getting is that this thing was made by the alleged alt-right trolls. Sort of a 'make a gold of my own great again.' MAGO-MOGA
@roz I always try to build in an 'out' during an unplanned scene. Get a phone call with an emergency, realise it's almost dawn and you have other stuff to do before the sun comes up, et cetera. Keep yourself as unlocked as possible.
ETA: It's also important to let the player know that you're free for now, but you have potentially a pre-planned scene later in the evening.
@ganymede said in Organix banned:
I don't care if you have mental illness
As a resident mentally ill person: Mental illness isn't a reason to be lenient. This place doesn't count, legally, as public participation thus you don't need to use the kid gloves with the mentally ill.
The main one, and it's a deep'un, that I took forever to learn is this: Most of the time people don't think about you. If you're not a complete boor, you don't have very much to worry about socially. Whatever you think people are obsessing over or gossiping about you behind your back... they probably aren't.
ETA: This doesn't count for this community. We're vengeful pricks.
@Derp Though a Universal Declaration of Rights would be ridiculous, I do believe that there is a vast majority of people that hold certain OOC behaviours to be reprehensible regardless of what game they're playing on. Not IC behaviours, OOC ones. I'd even go so far as to argue many of these objections are objectively sound - the detestation of stalking and grooming, for instance.
@surreality Besides, I am a guy. It'll be really disappointing coffee that tastes burnt and under-roasted at the same time, some of it will get in your hair somehow, and I'll be stupidly proud about it all.
@Arkandel There is a leading... I'll say hypothesis.. that anything attributed to 'anon' that goes back more than a hundred years was probably coined by a woman.
@insomniac7809 said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:
@deadculture said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:
After all, that's what 1984 is about, the totalitarian point of view in which the potential of a word to hurt means it has to expunged from the lexicon outright.
That is not what 1984 is about.
It's a valid reading of the text. Anything that 'hurts' the governmental machine is removed. Emotions, words, people, etcetera.
@vulgarkitten People tend to, at least from what I've experienced, invest far too much into their characters so that any slight against the character is clearly a slight against the player. And when one plays an antagonistish character, the player must also therefore be antagonistic - no matter how nice they are. Because players are dumb.
@thenomain My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.
In my youth I was the witness to a crime against a friend of mine. A crime of heinous and barbaric nature.
The perpetrator of said crime is up for parole, and I have been given the chance to testify once more in order to prevent that parole from occurring. Originally I wasn't going to, as much as it pained me to consider that, as I'd have to fly back to the UK to do so.
Yesterday I received a call that I could give my testimony via VOIP. I get my chance. So that's something I love today.
@faraday said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:
@arkandel said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:
In a forum that's largely about presenting ideas for others to comment in it would be counter-productive to discourage the concept of 'attacking' them. That's what peer reviews are about, after all; you invite conversation
Peer reviews are a central part of my job, and I can assure you that not making the other person feel attacked is an integral and essential part of a peer review. Read any of the million articles on effective peer reviews if you don't believe me.
There is a vital difference between a criticism and an attack.
On the other hand people that submit things for peer review are, on the whole, expecting criticism and willing to accept and embrace it. Discussion of this kind requires that two-way-street thinking, that many 'average' people don't invest in learning. So we don't see as much of it here.
@Arkandel Not really an overreaction in my experience - not with Juerg, but with Mage interactions in general. A Mage (when played by someone with piss-poor social skills at least) can and will do all of the things.
Oh, you want to investigate the dead body? Well I just asked the local spirits what happened, examined the body using fifteen flavours of special sight, and then reanimated the corpse for personal reasons. Y'all can just not come, it's already done.
@ziggurat I certainly agree that specific events can be ignored or what-have-you. But in terms of wide-spread social wobbling, I think it'd be... disingenuous, I guess, to totally pretend they're not there.
I'm not saying that every plot or NPC or whatever has to react to it outwardly, but the perception and feeling of a time and place should be preserved as much as possible. Naturally, if you're setting a game in now, and an event happens you aren't prepared for, then skirting around it is definitely appropriate especially if it's of a horrific nature.
I'm also not shouting for PCs to react 'authentically' really, though that's an option if that's what you want to explore... There are ways of portraying a level of racism or sexism or homophobia without outright yelling 'bender' every opportunity you get.
Still, games are about fun and if something isn't fun to play, you shouldn't have to play it. That said, if you don't find it fun to explore the causes of, say, the Harlem Renaissance, then you shouldn't use that as your backdrop. If you don't want to explore the legend of the Trojan War, don't set your game in the period that's going on.
Most folks don't play a modern game to explore those themes, and that's fine. But if someone says "oh we're making a game set in the latter half of WWII in California..." some folks are going to think "Okay... so are the Japanese-Americans in camps, or..."
I'm presently on between-term-vacation from work, I still check in on things and get drafts of my students' work sent to me for assistance and review.
For the first time all year one of the more "troubled" students has sent work in. It feels nice to feel like I'm actually making a difference in a young life.
