Secret Society

@Pavel that’s my thought as well, to be clear. the best they can.

no matter how hard one tries to be “fair” though there are always going to be people saying it’s not good enough. maybe it wasn’t for them, but there’s only so much a staff person can do.

they can’t know someone’s interested in something unless they speak up at something they see (or like, respond to inquiry). if someone doesn’t understand something they’re not going to know that without being told. i’m not really sure how staff is supposed to make sure that nobody gets the spotlight “too much” for any given person’s taste because a lot of time it’s the people who show up/make inquiries. people don’t like to hear that (and i do get the grumpiness over it, i’ve felt that in the past pretty often even though intellectually i understood that i wasn’t turning in requests or communicating with staff, so what did i expect), but i would say in a soft majority of cases i think that’s true.

i also think that’s where the “if you don’t trust leave” stuff comes from too. when you get to the point of having a ton of resentment, it’s not salvageable on the game a lot of the time. it’s stressful for everyone to deal with when someone feels that way AND desperately wants to hook into the metaplot/larger game. Sandboxing with friends can be enjoyable if you can turn off the desire to be part of the bigger picture.

maybe it’s just me being in my stuff, but it seems like it’s probably pretty hard to be a staffer now. i know i’ve been shocked lately to see habitual no shows across games, and a passivity that i mean sure some people did years ago too, but it does feel more common now to me, and i’m only seeing things playerside.

@mietze said in MU Peeves Thread:

i’m not really sure what staff is supposed to do, though.

Their best.

As callous as it may sound, it’s not future staff’s responsibility to make up for the evils of past staff. They just have to do their best at being decent people and decent staffers.

ETA: They’ll get it wrong, make mistakes, and (hopefully) learn to be better. The same as anyone else. Just do your best, don’t be a dick, and that’s all you can do.

i’m not really sure what staff is supposed to do, though.

“fair” is a pretty tricky thing to get right, and people feel what they feel (and sometimes what they feel isn’t something that is anyone else’s fault).

@sao This isn’t a direct reply to you, but you were the last one on the thread talking about this subject. For me, it’s the difference between “I don’t distrust you” and “I don’t trust you.” I’ll play on a game with Staff that I don’t distrust. I may not fully trust them, but I’m willing to offer them the chance to earn that trust. I will not play on a game where I don’t trust Staff. That is for the people who have already burned me or someone who I do trust.

And I agree that life is too short for the stress of “do I trust this person I’ve put in a position of power over my fun or not,” and this has only gotten more true as my life has gotten more full.

@Gashlycrumb Eh. You can either trust staffers to do their jobs, or not. If they’re not providing enough transparency for you to make that judgment, that’s its own issue - and may be reason enough to walk, in and of itself. I am skeptical of this tightrope you describe. The balance just … isn’t.

If you decide to stay on a place where you don’t trust the staff because you want to RP with people there, I think it’s a bad call. To be clear, I say this from the perspective of a person who has made this mistake. I would not make it again.

Life is just too fkn short for that kind of stress. This is a hobby about having fun. If you think your staffers are shady or cheating, get out now.

I’m not a staffer, I’m not telling anyone to trust me or GTFO. I am a player. I am old and tired. Just get out if they’re bad. And if they’re not? Let 'em be.

Having a meh week. Coming home. Sitting down (that in itself is a win) and then having furry critters on you. One snuggled in and one purring because they missed you.

I feel like (and this is my opinion not a fact) if you don’t trust someone leave. I mean that in games, in life, in relationships, in jobs, in all things. The older I get (and man is it older) the less time I have to give. I want to fill that time with people I trust. People that don’t make me second guess all the time (I have brain weasels there will be a few off moments).

It does NOT mean that the person isn’t trustworthy if I don’t trust them. It does not mean they are a bad person. It does not mean I am a bad person. Sometimes people and situations (especially in text) don’t mesh. That means, I stand by the ‘if you don’t trust them, leave’ statement. I don’t see it as a blanket to cover an issue. I think it a boundary to protect your time and your mental investment.

This is again, only my opinion.

@MisterBoring Whether or not that’s better, I don’t know if it’s practicable. And there are folks that really like that down time between episodes (I like some, just I would prefer that it be a couple of weeks compared to a month or three, again, I know people who prefer the downtime to the episodes, so YMMV).

I think that the only way you could possible get anywhere near even just a couple of weeks between episodes is to have two Storyteller Staffs, because there’s going to be some cooldown time and some administrative ramp-up time on either end of an episode. Even then, I think it would entirely depend on the setting/theme of the game whether the shortest possible downtime is the best option, a medium length, or a long downtime. I think that if you have intense episodes without much time for the players or characters to catch their breath, you’re going to want a medium-long amount of downtime; if you have episodes that meander and have time to catch your breath in the midst, then I think you would want shorter amounts of downtime.

I could see, say, a WWII game that has people at the front (or on alert at the airbase or whatever), needing a month or so between campaigns, to let the characters (and players) breathe and find their new status quo. But I could see a murder mystery game needing much less time between cases (because you’re probably going to get a little bit of investigation time and some breathing room in there, and it isn’t likely to be as life or death all the time as a combat game.

@Alveraxus I would be Very Interested to hear how this goes. Good luck!!

that feeling of relief when 2 people respond to your kid’s birthday party invite (was sweating that it’d just be family on saturday, though the college kids are all coming home for it) in the positive.

i think in general kid parties seem to have never really recovered post-covid, but also kaiju is so adhd and goes to a very small neighborhood school (same kids in same class since school reopened) so everyone had to deal with the adhd behavior (though he’d doing so awesome now) and my parent heart always wonders if that’s why no invites to him (my other 3 were all quirky in their ways, but at this age like every weekend there was something. But like the two moms that texted me back were like “hey they’re so excited, this is the first birthday party of the year” so also relief in maybe it’s not just us.