@Pyrephox said in MU* Wishlists:

Annnnd banned. Sorry about that, folks.

Awww. I kind of wanted to keep them like particularly stupid pets.

@hellfrog said in AI In Poses:

@NotSanni ok but how are people in this hobby deluded into thinking anyone else will think LLM writing is good? The game in question is not a minecraft server, it’s a real MU with real MUers who have been writing for years.

I mean, have you seen some of the shit that’s swept through BookTok and become insanely popular among a crowd of people who ostensibly love the written word and pride themselves on the volume of material they read? I think we may be conflating “I want to consume high quality art” with “I want to be entertained” here and while there is definitely overlap between the two, that Venn diagram is not just a circle.

@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:

My two cents? If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise. I feel that way about everyone, players or admin, but I give players way more grace because I know not everyone wants to slap their handle on right out of the gate and sometimes it’s nice to have a haven alt.

I also don’t link my handle, though I admittedly tend not to play on Ares games very often or very long.

If people want to know who I play, I’m generally willing to tell them – when asked directly. But I want it to be a conversation. I’ve had two different instances of two different men behaving in ways that are genuinely Not Okay that carried on over the course of actual real life years. After that, I’m just not comfortable having that sit out there publicly, oblivious to who may be accessing it. I want to know who’s asking and why. And if the answer is so they can avoid me, then that’s okay, too.

@Ominous said in BSG Reactica:

They didn’t have a plan. “They” being the writers. The Director admitted as much in one of the Director commentaries for the first season in the DVD set, and the moment I heard it I lost all interest in the series. Babylon 5 had established how one pulls off a well-planned sci-fi series a decade prior, and that numbskull thought he knew better.

B5 is always, always, always my comparison point for shows that just completely shit the bed on pulling together the mystery that they’ve been dragging out for however many seasons. It got messy towards the end because they were cancelled and then uncancelled, so rushed through the ending of all the main arcs in Season 4 and then built Season 5 largely out of things that were supposed to be hinted at… but that was network fuckery. Not the writers. Otherwise, it would’ve been about as close to perfect as a show with '90s costuming and the same repeating shots CGI visuals can possibly be.

And writing a show with central mystery works the same way as designing a game with a central mystery. You don’t have to know all the details right away. They can stretch and grow and shift with time. But you absolutely have to know the answers to the Big Question going in. It makes everything else consistent and solves plot problems more often than you’d think when you can go, “Does this contradict the Big Answer? If it breaks the Big Answer, it doesn’t belong in our story.”

@catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:

At the VERY MOST, I could see them using their PC like, ‘hey I found this spooky rock, can you guys go investigate it?’

But then again, a NPC could do that as well.

This one doesn’t bother me at all, especially if there’s a good IC reason for it – like being the head of an org. If someone leads an org, they’re running plots for the players in it, and the role of their PC in said plot is essentially The Quest Giver? They’re doing their job in character and doing extra to contribute to the game OOC. You go, Glen Coco.

@RightMeow said in Real life happy:

As my return to school isn’t a big deal to anyone in my actual life, I just wanted to share because I can. I am about halfway through my estimated timetable on my degree. I am double majoring with 18 credit semesters while working management for 40+ hours. I’m in accelerated courses to achieve the goal faster. I just got my certificates to say that I have again maintained my dean list holding that I’ve had the whole time and a merit award for taking part in the student insight committee.

That is all. I return you back to the game opens, closes, and dramas.

Thank you for reading.

From someone who was also an adult student carrying a full-time course load while working a full-time job for something like seven years over two degrees:

What you’re doing is incredibly hard. Anyone who doesn’t think it’s a big deal doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You should be enormously proud of yourself.

@Kestrel said in RL Peeves:

And I’m just tired, boss. I thought people using AI to RP for them was bad enough. Now I got an RL friend delegating social interaction to ChatGPT too. I don’t consent to this shit. I don’t want to interact with pristine slop, I want my unique human friends back.

“I use Copilot to prep for all of our 1:1 meetings!”

If you need Copilot to walk you through a weekly 1:1 meeting with your direct reports about their work capacity, current projects, and career goals because you’re incapable of holding that conversation on your own, I think the wrong one of us is the manager here, friend.

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

The real contest was to try to write a desc that would scroll anyone’s screen, contained as many treasured cliches like ‘sparkling orbs gaze into your soul’ as you could pack in, yet did not tell the reader anything about what the character actually looks like.

Eyes: Sparkling, soulful and impid, but of undetermined colour. Hair: Luscious and cascading, but of no particular colour or length. Skin: Flawless. Height: Graceful. Shape: Exquisite and touchable. Age: Blooming.

This feels like the advanced version of me complaining about how much I hate writing descs: “I don’t know. S/he has a face and stuff. It’s probably fine.”

Claude Lemieux, four time Stanley Cup champion. Suicide.

@SockMonkey said in Real life happy:

More of a real life cute, but wanted to share. This is a recent development that now seems to be routine.

Backstory: Our oldest cat has diabetes and has to get injections. Don’t worry, he’s doing fine. Grumpy old man, but his levels are good and he’s moving towards remission. That being said, since he has to get a shot twice a day he gets fed a little away from the other cats and gets some extra cuddles after.

Present Day: One of our youngest cats started to walk up and whine when I was administering the post-shot extra cuddles to Oldest Cat. So I laughed and said, “You only get extra cuddles if you get a shot.” He head donked me and meowed.

Just for fun I took the insulin pen (so solid plastic cap no needle to it) and gave him ‘his shot’. I said “There you go! Good job!” and cuddled him.

Now he comes up every feeding, every injection, and waits his turn patiently for ‘his shot’ and extra cuddles.

Similar story.

Two friends of mine have an old man cat named Speedbump, which is probably the best name a cat has ever had in the history of ever. Speedbump is also diabetic and is doing very well, to the point that he’s down to one injection a day instead of two.

The problem: Speedbump has been trained so well on his routine that he now comes to my friend at 9PM on the dot for his second injection and the treats that come with it. Friend has tried giving Speedbump the treats without the injection, but he knows he has to wait for the injection and will just sit there, staring longingly and meowing for his treats. So now Speedbump gets an injection once a day in the morning, and every night he gets a tiny little pinch on the back so he knows can have his snack.

@Rucket said in Real life happy:

@Rucket said in Real life happy:

I, uh, have a crazy job interview on Monday. I really can’t believe it but going to prep this weekend and hope Monday goes well!

Quoting my own post to say I had a 2nd one on Thursday and hope to hear something early next week about Interview #3.

@MisterBoring said in LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?:

I think most games these days are open to whatever your schedule is. Just explain it in the OOC comms channels before you get super deep into it so that nobody’s setting incorrect expectations for your attendance.

Honestly, I don’t think anyone really expects people to be online and available every single day anymore. I could be wrong, but if that’s the sort of pressure you’re getting from someone, direct them to the immortal words of Taylor Swift:

@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.

@Livia said in WoD: House Rules:

For me I think it depends on the reason for the house rules more than the rules themselves.

This, but most of all, I want to clearly see the reason for the house rule plainly stated somewhere. Why? Because if staff outlines why something was ruled that way, it lets me understand what kind of game the want to run–what themes they’re interested versus what bumps up against that, what sorts of stories they want to tell, what mechanics they do and don’t want to deal with, etc.

That makes it a whole lot easier for me to gauge what staff is looking for, or at least willing to engage with, when it comes to their interaction with players than things getting ruled on a case by case basis that can sometimes feel like, “Which GM card did you draw from the lottery? Do they like this plot? Do they like you? What mood are they in today? Is the wind blowing south-westerly and the moon full?” that can happen when you’re dealing with WoD, especially on a multi-sphere game with conflicting rules between splat, edition, and supplement.

Then again, I also tend to prefer single-sphere games specifically because they make the rule base so much easier to navigate. You may still need to HR something, but at least it’s going to be because of theme, mechanical confusion, or trying to make something work better on a MU*, instead of just, “Yeah, every sphere has a different but also overlapping skill list because screw you, that’s why.”

@Ashkuri said in Numetal/Retromux:

WOD players are you guys okay??

When have we ever been?

@Pavel said in Paid Role-Playing:

I certainly wouldn’t pay for the privilege of playing. I would, however, not object to making a regular donation to support the game’s financial running costs. If I liked the game enough to care whether it stays up or not.

But most game runners I know are wary of accepting such kindness as it can often come with the perceived problems, as regaled above, about pay to win or other kinds of bias.

ETA: Which is, I think, basically exactly the same as what mietze said above.

For awhile, a WOD game I was on had a tip jar that actually worked, but it was because the cost of running the game was relatively high, while the ask and the reward were clear and specific.

Kick in… I think it was $2? towards server costs a month and you got a very tantalizing XP. One whole XP! As a thank you. Anything above and beyond the cost of the server was explicitly stated to be beer money for the game admin and coder. Bear in mind, though, that this was a game that also involved having a fairly expensive DigiChat license. The cost of that license was a big part of why that type of game was rare and, even with the tip jar, they didn’t break even on the costs for most months of the year. From my understanding, people were (perhaps surprisingly) actually not dicks as a result, especially because the game owner was fairly explicit about what was coming in and what was going out.

With the cost of an Ares server being $12 a month, though? I honestly forget I have one open half the time.

@Sammich said in Celebrities We've Lost 2026 Edition:

@howyadoin Why not?

@MisterBoring said in Celebrities We've Lost 2025:

@Wizz said in Celebrities We've Lost 2025:

People Mag willing to just jump on that conclusion within hours seems pretty irresponsible unless their sources are like…the son himself, so. still taking that with a small grain of salt. enormously tragic either way, those two were absolute legends and it makes me heartsick.

Well, he’s been arrested for the murder this morning.

Yeeeeah, I was a little suspicious when the police said they weren’t looking for a suspect at the time. That usually means some variation of, “We know who it was and we’re just getting the evidence we need to arrest them.”

@Faraday said in AI Megathread:

@Aria said in AI Megathread:

I’m just sitting here watching this with a look of vague horror on my face

AI has no concept of this. You can ask it to “write secure code” or whatever, but it fundamentally doesn’t know how to do that. I sincerely hope it does not take a rash of Therac 25 level disasters to teach the software industry that lesson again.

Yeeep. I’m not in medical research anymore, but I used to work in the office that monitored clinical trials for massive university hospital system, including training clinical research coordinators on how to maintain documentation to standard.

You do not mess around with people’s lives, livelihoods, and life savings. If you break those, there’s really no coming back. I don’t understand why we have to keep learning this, but I guess some tech bro billionaire and all his investors that can’t actually follow along with what he’s saying need the money to upgrade their yachts.

@Hobbie said in AI Megathread:

I genuinely hope this bubble bursts with the force of a nuke because at some point in the near future an AI will introduce a genuinely serious problem that requires human resolution and there’s no humans around who have the knowledge to fix it for them.

tl;dr if you let dumb AI learn from dumb AI, AI gets dumber.

I cannot “THIS!!!” this hard enough.

My company is currently on a kick of “We’re gonna teach the product managers to code their own products! And the UXers! And the scrum leads! Everyone’s gonna vibe code and AI code and we’re going to release new features so fucking fast and it’s gonna be AWESOME!”

Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here watching this with a look of vague horror on my face because 1) my company works in one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country 2) is large enough that a single fuck-up can and has resulted in articles in national news publications because everyone likes to watch a giant stumble. So I keep looking at this “model of the future” thinking that we’re basically going to turn our code into a nightmare of non-functionality as hundreds of people get their sticky little fingers into it and only, like, half of them have any idea how it works. Meanwhile, the other half just shoves whatever the newest ‘agentic coding tool’ says into production because that’s what the computer told them and the computer must be right.

We’re going to get slapped with the sort of regulatory fine that could pay for 20 developers for the next five years, and then everyone’s going to stand there looking surprised.

I’m pretty sure we’re all just living in the plot of Wall-E now and I hate it here.