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MU Peeves Thread
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(sorry for the late reply to this, it just felt like a big question to answer)
I think there is a mix to be found?
Speaking from my experience as a gay man, I played on a lot of RPI MUDs before I found MUSH games, and many of them would say something like “We allow LGBT characters! We have no rule against it!!” but would leave out the context that the IC world was heavily biased against it and that whenever an LGBT character became known, they would be swiftly murdered in short order, as an example.
TW: Transphobic violence
In fact, in one game I played on, killing a player would leave that player’s corpse as an object, which players could leave a pose/status on for anyone who walked through the grid space subsequently to see. It was meant to be used as a bit of immersive worldbuilding. Walking in on the corpse of one of my character’s friends (a trans woman) and seeing exactly how (and how apparently gleefully) my fellow players had chosen to describe mutilating her body was one of the most disturbing experiences I have had on any MU game and put me off the genre completely for a number of years.So, discovering MUSH games which seemed largely to have moved past that was a revelation. I am happy almost every MUSH I have played was happy with me wanting to play a character who represents me, for example. I would not want to play on any game which centred real world themes of racism/homophobia/misogyny and other issues like that, because I ultimately MU as a form of escapism.
If a MU game wanted to incorporate other elements - L&L games for example, almost always deal with issues of classism to some extent, though in a far more high fantasy setting than we might experience day to day. Or a fantasy game where there was a racial prejudice between elves and dwarves, or something. I think for me those are much more deal-able with and tend to be slightly less visceral because there is an added layer of separation.
Obviously as players we all have prejudices and blind spots that we can’t help but bring IC with us, but in terms of my MU games I would generally prefer the common modern prejudices not to be there, even if the world is flawed in other ways.
But then that is also just my subjective feelings on the subject. So someone else might feel differently (and rightly so).
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@Pacha said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Roz
TW: Transphobic violenceIn fact, in one game I played on, killing a player would leave that player’s corpse as an object, which players could leave a pose/status on for anyone who walked through the grid space subsequently to see. It was meant to be used as a bit of immersive worldbuilding. Walking in on the corpse of one of my character’s friends (a trans woman) and seeing exactly how (and how apparently gleefully) my fellow players had chosen to describe mutilating her body was one of the most disturbing experiences I have had on any MU game and put me off the genre completely for a number of years.jesus fucking christ
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Mild Bummer Peeve: Introduced idea of Thing to Do
, got undermined with this “ok, but” attitude and the moment passed. Which is what it is… like, if someone isn’t interested in doing what you’re doing, that’s life. Except the vibe shift almost took permission away from other people to show interest? I know that gatekeeping was not at all the intention. Which is all me overthinking the sentiment: this was disappointing and getting that momentum back during a hard work week didn’t happen as naturally as I would have liked. -
@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:
Side peeve: why do games insist that they are in beta for years?
Agreed. I wish that MU*s used the alpha/beta/gold terminology like most video games do. It would make it much clearer what stage of development the game is in and what sort of experience to expect.
Alpha: Hammering on theme and systems, making sure there aren’t any obvious bugs.
Beta: Testing with a wider audience, looking for anything that a smaller alpha group didn’t find.
Gold: Ready for full release to the public – changes can still come when necessary (patches!).
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@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
everyone wants to take down The Man! everyone has different ideas for how to do it and wants the credit
Everyone wants to take down The Man, until they themselves are The Man, at which point everyone else has to be delighted with the idea and nothing can ever go wrong ever again…
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starting to chisel away at the creative block.
I need a new game.
(everything I’ve tried lately hasn’t been sticking; I’m getting restless. I may have to resort to writing mediocre flash fiction.)
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eggshells 🫤
Feeling like … I can only scene with you as long as I am very polite and mindful and watch my step and am on my best behaviour. Which is a very reasonable thing to expect of anyone. But also I don’t like feeling tense like that, so if RP always feels like a first date or a job interview, I think I would rather just avoid and hang out with friends who take themselves less seriously and let me fart around.
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@Kestrel said in MU Peeves Thread:
Feeling like … I can only scene with you as long as I am very polite and mindful and watch my step and am on my best behaviour.
This is death to me and any kind of interesting RP interaction. Also just…human interaction. Because when this happens it doesn’t feel like these people want courtesy or basic consideration, it feels like they want me to prioritize them at all times and edit my behavior to some moving goalpost that’ll please them and…no.
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If it feels like someone is constantly on a hair trigger waiting to flip out about the smallest thing, I wish them well and get the fuck out of there. Life is too short to walk on eggshells. And as already stated, the goalposts always seem to change.
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I don’t feel like playing any more and I can’t really identify why. Just waiting to see if it passes.
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@Snackness I hope it does
but also taking a break is valid if you need one -
@Snackness
Upvote for solidarity. The muses are fickle. Love playing with you but sometimes you need a hard refresh before you can find them again. -
When the brain weasels are too powerful
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@Floof nooooooo weasellllllllllll
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Not having enough time to finish a fucking application.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:
Not having enough time to finish a fucking application.
Spending 3 weeks in chargen and realizing I just don’t have it in me (plus Ghost of Tsushima is finally hitting PC next month along with Homeworld 3, and it’s a non-zero chance I’ll be sucked into one of these).
Not really the same thing, but…
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@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
the problem is absolutely players. what’s easy and fun to spin for 6 people is probably unmanageable for 20, 30, or 100. everyone wants to take down The Man! everyone has different ideas for how to do it and wants the credit
Back in the reality of the vaguely sane, people manage this unmanagable thing regularly. They use an ancient method called “taking turns.”
Admittedly it means that you or your best buddy will have to endure times when it is somebody else’s turn. This is indeed a terrible problem caused by other players existing.
And of course it’s players that create the problem of there being too many players, by showing up, often in response to an advertisement or other form of invitation. Gamerunners who accept new PCs when they have more than they can handle are not the cause at all. It’s those ‘extra’ players who keep messing shit up with their refusal to play extras, and their entitled expectations of having their PCs be significant from time to time.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a joke. Except the joke about how you spend ten hours writing an awesome adventure and the PCs immediately kill the NPC guide, pawn the McGuffin and TPK each other fighting over the profit has an amusing element of truth to it, while the BMD/MSB refrain of “the problem is players” almost always comes across to me as blame shifting rubbish.
'You ride the mechanical bull, you do not fight it.'
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@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
Back in the reality of the vaguely sane, people manage this unmanagable thing regularly. They use an ancient method called “taking turns.”
One’s milage definitely varies.
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Even though this never used to be a thing, in the modern world I’m realising I basically forget that a MU* I was playing still exists if it doesn’t have a discord.
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@Gashlycrumb That’s fair. But what I mean by ‘the problem is players’ is the problem is quantity of players. I love an ideal where a storyteller has consistent and balanced motivation and creativity to GM for a rotation of all the players in a game with 75 active players. Taking turns IS obviously the correct solution to my stated problem of ‘players’.
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