Honestly, these days, as far as backgrounds or mechanical explanatory notes or whatever other stuff a game might want… just give me a questionnaire.

@MisterBoring said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

@Pavel said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Such games should, then, have those requirements explicitly detailed somewhere. What mechanics need explanation, what needs to be explained, and why, etc.

Agreed.

Heck, that probably could be its own conversation about information silos, documentation, and reasonable expectations.

Which isn’t something I deal with at work RL at all.

cough

@MisterBoring said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Additionally, a player should have notes for any mechanics that need explanation. If your character has a Mild Phobia on their sheet, you need to explain that in your stuff.

Such games should, then, have those requirements explicitly detailed somewhere. What mechanics need explanation, what needs to be explained, and why, etc.

A problem I see crop up repeatedly is unwritten expectations that have to be explained over and over again because nobody remembers to write things down, and people end up being annoyed that they do what they think is wanted only to be told that it’s not what is wanted at all.

@Gashlycrumb said in Numetal/Retromux:

ask B.F. Skinner.

My main concern when it comes to application processes is whether the effort I put in will be returned to me. If I put in a great deal of effort in an application so that it takes days to complete, the least I expect is that staff, in turn, put in some effort to tell decent stories.

If you expect players to put in days of effort for an application, and also expect players to be your primary source of storytelling, that seems to be an unreasonably uneven workload.

That and the usual “if I’m expected to write a novel, I expect that information to actually be used” thing that you mentioned. Which happens so infrequently that we may as well say it never happens.

I’m fairly sure we’re at least scored Line for ye olde WORA bingo…

@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?

@Wikibara said in Tales of Zalanthas:

@Juniper It’s for people who want to live in both denial and sadness simultaneously, I guess.

Ah. Marriage.

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

Brain meats failing happens.

More and more frequently, as the decades continue their inexorable march…

Patrick Muldoon, ‘Days of Our Lives’ and ‘Melrose Place’ Actor, Dies at 57

@SockMonkey

@Kassien said in Deep Shadows MUSH - Closed Beta:

I would be happy with just a good core group of RPers

Best we can do is a bunch of mentally ill queer folks with angst and a penchant for metaphor.

I’m going to have to lay down more one-line pithy metaphors, just so you all can give me poetry in response.

@somasatori I dunno, I think it’s a stupid people problem a lot more than it is a power parity problem. Drunk drivers don’t care about the speed limit.

@hellfrog Mage is also a problem. I don’t hear much about Changeling, but I don’t play much changeling so it’s not really in my echo chamber.

To your point, though, I think large-scale antagonisms could well be a large part of the issue. At least in nWoD and CofD (which is a stupid name) the different supernatural groups don’t really care about each other all that much—because there’s no metaplot really.

@Yam said in Numetal/Retromux:

I do not think saying you generally have your work cut out for you when running a game with very, very dated social mores is lazy and reductive.

I was, perhaps, unclear. What I meant was that people (usually shitty staff) allow negative behaviour and then cover it up with the excuse that the genre is at fault. Which is, or at least has been, a common thing.

I fear that the all-too-common assertion of this or that genre being particularly problematic abnegates the true bearers of responsibility: the players and staff playing those games. We can talk ad nauseam about systems and lore and thematic appropriateness, but that’s basically irrelevant—we’ve been having those conversations for the better part of two or three decades at this point.

Poor behaviour is only acceptable because people in positions of authority continue to accept it. Couching the problem as “this genre has its issues” is lazy and reductive and passes the buck from staff enforcement of behavioural standards to some ineffable ‘theme’ problem.

@Ashkuri While that’s all true, and it may explain some of the behaviours seen in WoD games, it doesn’t make anything we’ve seen exclusive or even more prevalent in WoD when compared to other genres.

I’ve seen just as much egotistical bullshit from Lords and Ladies games, Star Wars games, Star Trek games… Alas, I’ve only heard about the kind of bullshit that happens on comic book games, but that’s a whole different kettle of sparrows.

WoD was simply one of the more popular genres in our corner of the hobby for an extended period, so we have a stronger institutional memory of the problems.

@Lemon-Fox said in Numetal/Retromux:

@Ashkuri All of this is why I don’t play WOD at all. It seems pretty par for the course.

It’s really no better nor worse than any other genre, there’s shitfuckery everywhere.

@Prototart said in Numetal/Retromux:

@catzilla

That’s all well and good if you’re a normal, heathy, functional adult, but what about the rest of us