Numetal/Retromux
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@Pavel / @Gashlycrumb
‘The Michael Jordan of Drunk Driving’ by AJJThe Michael Jordan of drunk driving played his final game tonight.
Emburdened[sic] by his loneliness,
he wanted to feel alive;
His laziness built the pyramids
and his solitude was a knife.
The Michael Jordan of drunk driving played his final game tonight. -
@Pyrephox said in Numetal/Retromux:
@somasatori said in Numetal/Retromux:
Someone once told me (paraphrased) that the primary difference between maintaining OOC respect for your fellow players after a PVP/tense situation at a LARP and maintaining OOC respect and kindness towards your fellow MUSHers in the same situation is that MUSHers are not obligated to sit in a booth with each other at IHOP at 2am after we’ve finished our scenes.
Anonymity can be a real motivator in being a serious asshole towards others – which is interesting, because I’m fairly certain we’ve all known each other (or of each other) for the better part of a decade (which is perhaps also what leads to PVP situations).
That said, PVP is a difficult one. On one hand, if you explicitly prohibit PVP in a WoD environment, it takes some of the bite out of inter-sphere relations. On the other hand, allowing for a no-holds-barred environment will make the game – from examples I’ve seen – into a tedious free-for-all. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception based on the people I talk to, but I feel like interest in PVP has dropped off in the last little while.
I used to be in a gaming club in college where a whole lot of people were Mind’s Eye Theatre players. For my money, I’d say there’s not a whole lot of difference in toxicity: lots of vicious personal enmity, gossip, blurring of OOC/IC boundaries, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and cheating. Having to look people in the face afterwards didn’t really seem to help any of it.
Fun Fact: The only time I’ve ever been reduced to literally hiding behind other people in order to get a man twice my age to stop leering at me in a public space was when I was in college, attending a campus Changeling LARP as an OOC observer to see if I wanted to join. He was, supposedly, “just doing what his character would do!” since he was playing a satyr. Again, I was an OOC observer and visibly tagged as such. As far as his ‘character’ was concerned, I didn’t exist. I was 19. He had to be in his 40s. No one seemed to think this was a problem except for me, my then-boyfriend, and the friend I’d gone there with.
So. Y’know. Do with that information what you will.
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@somasatori said in Numetal/Retromux:
Someone once told me (paraphrased) that the primary difference between maintaining OOC respect for your fellow players after a PVP/tense situation at a LARP and maintaining OOC respect and kindness towards your fellow MUSHers in the same situation is that MUSHers are not obligated to sit in a booth with each other at IHOP at 2am after we’ve finished our scenes.
I found that telling people, “We are pretending this is my living room. We may not all be friends, but we’re all gonna act friendly because it’s my living room,”
worked all right.
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I’m going to have to lay down more one-line pithy metaphors, just so you all can give me poetry in response.
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So far, my experience with Retro has been kind of underwhelming.
The application process is… tricky.
I’m certain that the game is fun, conditional to being able to actually get to play on it.Amended: asking for help with writing an application is a fast way to get a reply from Staff - and shown the door. They’re deeply inconsistent enough in their criteria that they tacitly refuse to document it.
I’m not just underwhelmed, I’m reminded of why Polk felt so at home in that place.
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And, yet, 30 other characters managed to make it through the app process. At some point, you need to ask… is it me?
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@RedJellyBean
Oh, cool. -
Polk notoriously crashed the game though
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@Wikibara said in Numetal/Retromux:
Amended: asking for help with writing an application is a fast way to get a reply from Staff - and shown the door.
Could you expand on this with some context?
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@Pavel
I applied to play two characters - the first was a Mage, nothing out of the ordinary, the process would be slow-going; I understood, the sole staffer was swamped with what was described as eight applications in a small period of time. Totally cool, even relatable. Every day, I check in on the job. There’s some back-and-forth with the very-helpful Magewiz on the topic; mostly, it’s in fixing up the paradigm and avatar, which are usually my weak point. Progress is made, updates are posted to fit with stated criteria, the Mage is not the issue.In the interim, I apply for a Changeling; I’m familiar with the source material over the last (ha ha, I am old) thirty years, so I feel pretty confident in it. There’s no guidelines to follow, just vibes, and no help is on offer. I wing it, and my first effort falls short, because it doesn’t fit the “setting.” Which, well, it’s their game, they know it best. I get told to update it to fit the game mechanics, to ensure that I include the words, “Troll,” “Kithain,” “Dreaming,” “Fae,” “Noble,” “Glamour,” “Banality,” “Changeling.”
In the CtD20 core rulebook, the opening story that runs from page 14 to 24, uses the word “pooka” exactly twice and none of the other aforementioned words. How in the shady side of Hades someone is to compete with that narrative and somehow shoehorn in those terms, I’m certainly intrigued on that process for setting up a background.
Asking for help on their Discord in the “Help Me” section netted no actual help. There were helpful people and they did offer assets, inclusive of someone who provided me with a link to a historical website detailing the goings-on in the era and locale; given that I’d been alive and around the same time and place, it was gratefully accepted although of limited use.
A while later, I got a message from one of the admins which was also accompanied by what I thought was a spammer’s message; some routine antisemitic stuff, nothing that unusual.
As a freebie, I was blocked, which I consider a very strong positive, all things considered.
A quote from the app process comes to mind: The criteria are largely subjective, not objective.
Earlier, I had joked about a vibes-based character generation process. I feel eerily prescient now.
