MU Peeves Thread

Third Eye

I’m vaguely reminded of some L&L that drew ire for taking a break for Christmas.

Oh, it’s not just that L&L game (iirc it was Concordia but I didn’t play there so this is just the haze of forum memory). It is shocking how this comes up, every single year, across the spectrum of games. People complained on the last place I staffed when a major plot arc concluded in late October/early November and staff said they weren’t starting new ones until after the holidays. IDK, my friends.

MisterBoring

@Yam said in MU Peeves Thread:

Ask any staffer who was DEDICATED to prompt, “fast”, consistent responses how long they stuck around. How long the game existed.

I can count the number of staffers that were dedicated to that stuff that also stayed through the end of the game and did not contribute to the game’s ending on one finger. It probably didn’t hurt that the person in question was on full disability with a lower back injury and so didn’t actually have a day job.

hellfrog

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Trashcan said in MU Peeves Thread:

You’re certainly free to decide this doesn’t match your preference, but it’s not really fair to decry it as a miscarriage of justice.

A miscarriage of justice? Haha.

But really, the expectation that everybody gets a turn and the GM doesn’t skip yours because they kinda feel like it is not something that needs to be explicitly stated in a policy. It’s how gaming works. It is fair to decry it as rude fuckery, which is what we talk about here.

disagree. if you are odious or rude to a staffer, or you no-sell when they try to include you, or you just are high maintenance and take up too much gm time? These are all perfectly valid and fair reasons to skip players, leave them out of things, or refuse to GM for them.

tsar

@Pacha said in MU Peeves Thread:

Yes, they are volunteers, but if they were volunteering at the dog shelter, I would still expect them to at least show up, keep the lights on and at least put some food down, even if they can’t manage to take them all on a walk.

The different is, the dogs can’t leave at a dog shelter. That’s an accepted responsibility that you agree to when you agree to volunteer at a dog shelter.

The players can leave my game if they’re unhappy or if they don’t feel they’re receiving the attention they deserve. I think everyone should go and play on games that give them joy and relief from the absolute horrors of everyday life.

But you can’t convince me that running plots on a game is the same responsibility as caring for living, breathing beings in a real caretaking sense.

Gashlycrumb

@sao said in MU Peeves Thread:

skipping one for awhile because you aren’t feeling it is an extremely reasonable thing to do.

This is true. But I’m not talking about skipping one for a while. That’s gonna happen.

@Yam said in MU Peeves Thread:

discourage all would-be game creators who may now believe that someone is always going to be watching them on the +where to decide whether or not they are stretched thin enough.

I’ve said it before, to the disgruntlement of the MuSB readership: If you run a MU that has more than a few hand-picked players, someone will criticise you. If that is gonna fill you with rage, or shame, or anxiety, you should just not run an open-apps game.

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

There’s a lot of stuff to consider on staff side too:

Yes, they should honestly be honest with the player and ask them to leave, not waste the player’s time, damage their own temper, or profess that it’s wrong for players to expect GM attention on the same time-scale as other players.
Yes, but I’m not talking about that, for as I said, a player can tell how many +requests have been submitted between two of their own +requests, and even if you’re not trying it’s likely that you will notice that the job number went up a lot since your last +request, or didn’t.
Yep. I would suggest if they’re having a bad year they should take sabbatical. If they’re having a bad month, week, or day, well, yeah, that happens. But players are also people, and they talk to each other, so if you tell them you’re not responsive because bad week but they also heard Abelard talking about the quick and cool response he got that same week, well. Reasonably, they’ll probably think you ran out of steam after you got to Abelard. But when the same thing happens week after week? They have a point.
What? If I have a scheduled appointment, I expect the person to show up. Even if it’s at a weird time. Why the heck is any staffer scheduling something at a time they can’t make?

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

This sounds like something you’ve done yourself. Are you a +where stalker?

It does?

I did once inspire the wrath of VASpider by telling her that yeah, everybody knows from the +where that she’s TSing with Tiny while players are waiting for +requests, and nobody’s saying anything because it’s against MU etiquette, which is how it goes, but for crying out loud, don’t tell the public channel that’s what you’re doing. I am not sure that counts. And it was probably 2003.

@hellfrog Those are valid reasons to ask them to leave, not valid reasons to cheat.

@tsar said in MU Peeves Thread:

But you can’t convince me that running plots on a game is the same responsibility as caring for living, breathing beings in a real caretaking sense.

It’s not, but y’know, they want joy and relief from the absolute horrors and it’s not wrong to be dissapointed, annoyed, or hurt at being shut out when it’s working for others and they can’t figure out why they’re not able to reach the top of the queue.

Pacha

@tsar said in MU Peeves Thread:

But you can’t convince me that running plots on a game is the same responsibility as caring for living, breathing beings in a real caretaking sense.

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to suggest that the two were directly equivalent.

My point is that even if you are “only a volunteer” by volunteering you are still agreeing to be responsible for fulfilling the basic function of the role you have volunteered for.

Pavel

@Pacha A thousand times this.

Volunteer just means a person who has a job, of their own volition, that is unpaid. It’s still a job, and comes with expectations and requirements. Requiring someone to meet those expectations and requirements isn’t unreasonable.

ETA: Some place unreasonably burdensome expectations on their volunteers, but that’s a somewhat different idea to objecting to expectations period.

Yam

@Gashlycrumb Idk how to ask this… does this happen to you frequently? Are you a bit of a chore? I mean I’ve absolutely been a bit of a chore.

Pavel

@Yam I can only aspire to be a chore. Someone eventually does a chore.

RightMeow

I think that GM’s are people.

Life is messy and complicated and nothing ever goes to plan on most days. It’s part of living life. It doesn’t mean it’s also not fun and not grand.

When it comes to staff and GM, it always feels like it’s a them vs us player mentality that I’ve never loved. I tend to be relatively nice, understanding, and laid back. I adore writing stories. However, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.

That’s okay. A staff member shouldn’t be made to feel they have to ‘deal’ with me if I zap their energy. A GM shouldn’t feel they have to include me. I would like a heads up if possible so I don’t keep trying to get involved in it (awkward). I’ll learn if they don’t though I got brain weasels for days.

As a player, I can also be flaky. My RL is hectic and my schedule borders on insanity that changes. I love those that have been understanding with me over the years. Hell there were deaths, births, relationship endings, etc that we have all gone through.

I think (and maybe I’m off track - it happens a lot) that you never know what the people on the other side of the screen is going through. I think the whole MU* environment is a lot better if we just show a bit more compassion. In the end, it ain’t all that deep. It’s just a game. Sure we love it. Sure we get emotionally invested from time to time, but at the end of the day. It’s a game. It’s a hobby we share. We should remember that staff (and players) are fitting this hobby into their very messy, very full, very inconvenient lives.

If a game is going somewhere you don’t like, leave. It’s the rule of the internet that there will be another X in X amount of time if you just wait. Or you can be the one to set up the new and improved X thing. I guess, I just feel like no on owes me their time and energy if they don’t want to give it and I likewise don’t owe anyone mine.

Life is complicated. Eat cake – or something.