@Pavel said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

All of these games are ultimately descended from United Heroes, which had like 400-plus pages on MSB because it was run by an incel and staffed by a coterie of maladjusted freaks even by superhero game standards.

The first real split from UH was HAM, created by people who had absolutely no problem with how things were done on UH until one of them, Ruby, an emotionally unstable pathological liar, lost favor with the guy who ran UH. They made no changes from UH except for who was being abusive, unless you count letting Chaucer use his rambling, incoherent, hundreds-of-pages-long “theme” that centered around whatever media he had consumed that week.

(I will pause to say that I hate Ruby with a special intensity because even after a decade there are drooling quasi-humans who believe that I’m a predator because that was the only lie she could think up on the spot to deflect when I outed her e-boyfriend as a serial sexual harasser and stalker of my friends.)

From HAM, you get the Chaucer games and now - whatever, Superhero MUSH, I guess.

Nothing good will ever grow from that poison vine.

@GF said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Prototart I can think of two off the top of my head. One is a hero, and one is Batgirl’s normie roommate, so I’ll assume no one is knocking players down in a rush to play her.

the only trans char either of us had ever seen played is Sera, Angela’s girlfriend who hasn’t appeared in, like, a decade

the entire thing is dumb and the whole “we hear you. you are valid. here are the six characters you can play.” makes it even dumber

@renaveleigh said in MU Peeves Thread:

I don’t want to ascribe malice, and, I don’t, but this is not a well-reasoned policy at all.

in the posts people made about ~continuity~ and rosters and inherited characters what i think maybe got missed about the place in question is that it’s literally a superhero fuck MUX that when i looked at it had a continuity that was literally “someone’s continuity is what they say it is, batman can be 20 and Nightwing can be 30”

it’s hard not to ascribe malice when it’s a place literally built on fucking and then sharing logs of your fucking that decided one particular kind of body was unacceptable for fucking unless it was completely hidden and unacknowledged

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

If you go back ten or so years ago, there were definitely places wherein if they discovered you had posted on WORA (or wherever), they would flay you alive, tar you, feather you, fire you into the sea, and then ban you.

it isn’t that this changed it’s just that nobody ever comes to dump things anymore

everybody either silently deals with it until they can’t or just leaves bc they know exposing like even the absolute worst behaviors won’t accomplish anything and literally no one will care who didn’t already

@catzilla

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

@RightMeow said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Prototart

I use to write these five paragraph purple prose descs to try and get on that page. I was successful once. Now I’m like: It’s a tree or It’s a costume - yay.

Free time has changed.

The only game I’m really on right now has an average desc length of like three sentences and mine are all still five paragraphs even tho nobody reads them. I refuse to learn lessons of any kind.

@schrodingerscig said in Bannings:

What I don’t understand is why we keep hearing again and again about how certain people did a thing to someone five years ago or ten years ago and how that makes them an awful person today.

if somebody shit on your couch you’d remember it, and you’d probably bring it up when somebody else talked about how that person’s going around shitting on couches

oh, hi there. i will be using big girl grammar and even capitalization for this one!

Before we begin, I’ll recount a bit of history. HAM - Heroes Assembled - is a splinter, or more appropriately a revenge game, derived from UH, United Heroes.

United Heroes was originally run by Claremont, a serial sex pest, had a wizard named Ditko who was an incredibly aggressive sexual harasser, and was filled with staff who knew that these things happened but actively gaslight, attacked, or outright banned anyone who brought them up.

This status quo persisted for several years, interrupted only when Ruby, Claremont’s chief attack dog and TS partner, decided she didn’t want to TS with him anymore. Claremont responded by undoing all the things he had let her get away with because of her position, which was a step too for. Sexually harassing players was one thing, but a friend? That won’t do, sir! THAT is unethical!

And, so, much of UH’s staff, until now not simply fine with how the game was run but willing to viciously attack anyone who aired their dirty laundry, their morals at last outraged, quit en masse and created a new game - Heroes Assembled.

HAM was in all but name run by Chaucer, someone who actively despises comic books and was never shy about letting everyone on this comic book game know if, God forbid, they wanted to do something from a comic book. He was demeaning and insulting to the vast majority of the player base, and complaints were routinely filed against him only to be ignored or for the person who filed them to be quietly kicked from the game for vague reasons.

Recently, HAM reached the same breaking point UH did. It’s fun when it’s done to players, but it’s unconscionable when it’s done to someone else. And, so, Chaucer was fired. Which triggered this series of posts:

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Message: 2/529 Posted Author
Dismissed from Staff Mar 10 2024 Caitlin Fairchild

I have been dismissed from Staff.

I want to make it very clear, to everyone, that I am not leaving staff because of you players. I love working with you. I love getting to help tell your story. I am greatly fulfilled when I help someone turn a rough idea into a diamond of a character. Or discover deeper connections to our lore than they knew their character had. You have been there for me through rough times, and I am truly grateful to have been there for you. Coming up with our IC lore and theme has been one of my proudest accomplishments as a writer. We have taken this game and built it into something totally unique. Not just a sandbox, but a coherentworld* where your character’s actions leave a permanent set of footprints in the sand.

Shakespeare has informed me that we simply do not have ‘compatible visions’ for how to run a game. And to be honest, I have run out of gas. The last four years on staff have been a constant struggle. There have been too many times where I have seen her unapologetically lash out at players and staff because she is tired or upset or angry. I am tired of enforcing and explaining policies that don’t make sense to me. Of watching standards be inequitably applied, with Shakespeare’s buddies getting preferential treatment. I keep proposing ways to address the problems players bring to my attention but I have learned that changing anything, anything at all, starts an immediate uphill battle. Whether it is recognizing that policy can’t cover 100% of all concepts, or even something as simple as opening Space! up to you players, the biggest obstacle to change is always Shakespeare’s stubborn insistence that her policy is above criticism.
[6:26 PM]
At a recent sit-down, I (rather flatly) told Shakespeare my problem with her is how she hurts players in her fits of pique or anger. How stubborn she is and how hard she clings to policies that the players themselves disagree with. I came to that discussion in good faith, wanting to find a way we can work together. I realized right away that she came to that ‘talk’ not with the intention of finding a way forward, but to get me to resign from my position. I learned her problem with me is that I don’t just roll over when she insists her policies are inviolable and sacrosanct. That my sense of fairness, my judgement, has no impact on what she feels like doing in the moment; that there are no exceptions to her rules except the ones she allows. In years previous she has promised to change, to grow up, to share the load and work with me than against me. I have concluded that she never really intended to stick with those promises. I tried to tell her that she can’t just rule this game by executive fiat. To quote Shakespeare: “I do have final say. I have always had it. It is my game, and invited others to come help and be part if they wished to. That that hasn’t been accepted by you has been one of the biggest sources of friction.”

I feel like I am letting you all down, and I am very sorry for it. I feel defeated. That my ideas aren’t welcome as a staffer. Shakespeare says I am the problem, that I’m causing her too much stress and frustration. Still, I don’t intend to give up my characters. At the end of the day, I am a player here, too. This post is to ensure you folks understand that you aren’t the cause of my disaffection. I wish you all the best of luck, and I’m still here to help you with lore, chargen and storytelling to the best of my ability-- staff bit or no.

Yours,
-The Player Formerly Known as Chaucer.

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Message: 1/171 Posted Author
Chaucer leaving staff Mar 10 2024 Shakespeare

Hey folks. I asked Chaucer to take a leave from staff tonight. We’re not going to ax grind about it, so I’ll give you as neutral an explanation as I can.

There has been ongoing friction for a very long time, over different views on the game. It is only getting worse. And it finally hit a point that it wasn’t healthy for anyone involved to continue.

I asked him to take a leave. He responded poorly. And that’s where it is. The game will continue.

I have a lot of respect for what Chaucer’s done even as we’ve had major disagreements. I wish it hadn’t ended up like this, but this is where it’s at. Thank you for patience.

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Message: 1/172 Posted Author
Resigning from Staff Mar 24 2024 Coleridge

Hello HAMmers, It's your friendly neighborhood staffer Coleridge here, saying goodbye. No, I'm not leaving the game, but I am stepping down as a staffer. Some of you are no doubt wondering if this is connected to Chaucer being removed from staff, and I'll get to that. First I want to say it has been fun. I've worked to help a lot of you on details of plots, or applications for new characters or +sheet updates, and seeing the ideas and imagination out there is great. I've tried to treat the staffing job as if I was an editor on a comic title, helping writers to integrate their ideas into the greater comics universe they are writing in and providing them a sounding board. We've got a fun bunch of writers here.

So on to the elephant in the room. Chaucer and Shakespeare have been the two biggest driving forces for what made HAM such a fantastic place to RP. As is so often the case, they complemented each other's strengths, and balanced out each other's weaknesses. Removing Chaucer from the equation was in my opinion a poor decision. It was also one that was done without consulting staff as a whole, and that was the worse decision. 

Had Chaucer been removed by majority vote of staff, or just resigned (which was very likely) I might not have felt the need to resign myself, but I'd still be discontented with the situation. Since I started as staff a year and a half ago I have been pushing for improvements to policy, and it has been a struggle to get any traction. On top of that there have been a number of decisions lately that I have been unhappy about, but I won't go into details. Stepping down seems to me the best way to make it clear how I feel, in the hope that improvements will be made.

I'll still be around as Donna and Colette, and on Discord as Colette_1. I don't intend on airing any dirty laundry, but if you want to talk, I'm around. More importantly, I'm here for that lovely RP!

Lastly I'd like to remind everyone that this is all just creative differences. In this community we've seen all seen games go horribly wrong, and many of you will remember older games with problems that were far deeper and nastier than these. In this situation there are no villains; just good people who disagree how things should be done.

--------------------< Comment 1 - Added Mar 24 10:59PM EDT >--------------------
Shakespeare Commented:
I’d like to thank Coleridge for all she’s done for the game. She’s been a good voice in our discussions, and frequently made good recommendations on feedback on characters, events and theme issues. Staffing is never easy and brings on stress and extra work. I’m very grateful for Coleridge’s contributions, and appreciate the honest discussions we’ve had including today around her choice to leave staff. Thank you, Coleridge.

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Message: 1/175 Posted Author
Resigning From Staff Apr 02 2024 Stoker

Hey Folks,

Rejoice!

For I am going to be stepping down from staff. I know that I have not been the greatest and if I ever did anything that upset you, please accept my apologies or hold a mush career long grudge, your choice!

I was really hoping that I could get myself to stay for the players and I just can’t.

I am nothing but stressed when I log into Stoker and it has been that way for the last couple of months. I come from a different style of staffing and I’ve felt like the odd person out at times on situations. Completely my hangup.

There have been a lot of missteps the last few months and those are also effecting my decision. There also seems to be no change on the horizon, so before I pull all of my beautiful hair out of my head, I will resign and focus on my characters here.

I will leave you with some parting wisdom:

https://i.imgur.com/N2gdXlZ.jpeg

Protect Your Mental Health,
Stoker (Wendigo)

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Message: 2/541 Posted Author
Stoker Apr 02 2024 Donna Troy

We can't +bbcomment on board 1 posts, so in the wake of her resignation (+bbread 1/175) I'm posting here to thank Stoker for all the hard work she put in over the years as a staffer.

 Stoker had been helping the game from the start by running Happy Harbor, so she was a great choice to invite onto staff. She always more than pulled her weight in staffing duties, and if you've ever put in a +request for an app, a vacation or pretty much anything else there's a high chance she contributed. Even if you never saw the contribution she would often add informative and helpful staff comments to jobs other staffers were handling, and was active in the staff discord channel, trying to help steer HAM in better directions when it needed it. 

Regret nothing, Stoker. Your hair is worth more than the frustration of trying to roll that boulder uphill.

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Just as HAM began, Chaucer and his friends are busy making a revenge game of their very own, one that will even allow plagiarized apps from HAM and use the same, 500-plus page theme/timeline Chaucer has spent years writing to grind everything recognizable about Marvel and DC into a homogenous grey paste that appeals to no one but him and his friends who are written into it. Several of them remain staff on HAM for the moment, the better to recruit players and undermine Shakespeare.

Now, I was one of a number of people banned for filing a complaint against Chaucer. With all the right people seeming to be outraged, I figured - why not ask? (Okay, you know why, but I wanted to prove it to my friends.)

Well, here’s why:

You paged Shakespeare with ‘Hi, this is Prototart. I was, to directly quote your page, kicked for “past acrimony, including issues from games that predate HAM.” This happened after I filed a complaint against Chaucer for insulting me and telling me I was not worth his time over the last character I applied for prior to briefly claiming Raven, a character that had until then been played by a friend of his, an action I have been told enraged both of them as well as several others. Given that the people who have not been fired or resigned are explicitly remaining here to insult you to anyone who will listen and steal players for the revenge game they’re making during occasional breaks from non-stop badmouthing you, your character, and your intelligence in a Discord that isn’t nearly as private as they think it is, does that judgement still stand?’
Shakespeare (S) pages: I don’t have all the details of the incidents fresh in my head. But I think I recall that there I didn’t sense a willingness to work out a resolution, to where I didn’t expect there would be future problems. That’s a hard thing for me to overcome. Definitely for now where I am not fresh up on events anymore, I think the judgment would have to stand, yes.
You paged Shakespeare with ‘I mean, the ‘incident’ was me pushing back on Chaucer when he started to demean me in an app and him telling me he wasn’t worth anyone’s time and to never apply again. I can literally cut/paste the exact statement you made to me, if you’d like. There was a problem that couldn’t be resolved only only because of someone you fired for being abusive.’
Shakespeare (S) pages: It wasn’t a good situation from any angle I agree. But the resolution was as much about how it was handled. People have to be able to resolve conflicts and coexist and sometimes it’s necessary to just sever connections when that doesn’t seem likely to happen. And the way it went, that was the feeling I was left with that any future conflicts would not be resolved either. I’m sorry, but going to be sticking with the decision for the time being.

It might be worth mentioning, at this point, that they DID welcome back someone who was banned for sexually harassing female players, someone banned with a bbpost and all - one that simply vanished one night not long before that player’s OC returned to the grid.

So, remember: being a predator might be bad, but it’s way worse to follow the recommend steps for resolving conflict with staff.

A link to the last thread on HAM, which I didn’t bump because it’s been dead for over a year:

https://brandmuday.mythicus.net/topic/114/comic-games-are-fun

@allthecookies said in MU Peeves Thread:

Jill guest still making the rounds!

Annoying? Yes. Impressive?

… in a way, yes. It’s been fucking 20 years.

wake up, feed the birds, make sure your social security check was deposited, thank the grandkids for the birthday cards, then settle down to log into a random game as a guest and pretend to be a lifeguard to the first female name you see not idle

I totally disagree with the idea that WOD places are the most dysfunctional games or attract the worst people. Like, sure, the blowups tend to be super public on them, but I’ve never been on any that were as poisonous as a bad superhero game.

@Raistlin said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

Modern superhero comics don’t really grab me either, so if I ran a straight canon game, the canon would basically be the 1990s bumped up to modern day, with some tools bolted on to fold in characters who’ve shown up since. And my worry is that would appeal to exactly one person: me.

I would legit kill for a game set in the early 80s that was actually 80s-vibed or one set in the 90s where I can imply Terry Richardson is being creepy to GenX.

A hack of Aberrant 2nd Edition. I’m a big fan of Aberrant 2E. Well, parts of it. I’d gut the whole nova tech section, which I find basically unplayable. But strip it down to the core system and powers and it’s a pretty slick setup.

I love the setting of Aberrant so, so, so much.

@Colette said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

20 on UH, 24 on HAM, 25 on LnL, not a teen.

So, given yhat time advances on UH and HAM, two of them used to be teens.

That player isn’t keen on those.

Ruby’s known for two things. One of them is being an emotionally unstable pathological liar, and the other is the number of sexpest she’s Ghislained for.

Just 1 year

I might be off on 7, but it was definitely more than one. I’ll have to check my logs when I get back from the OR, but I know this because I was the person who got permission to ignore all of Eianna’s stuff.

@Faraday said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:

@Jumpscare said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:

For me, I see them as how much of the game is dictated by code.

I agree that the code plays a part, but I don’t think it’s that simple. There have been plenty of games branded as “MUSH”, running on MUSH platforms (aka TinyMUX / PennMUSH), that had significant amounts of coded mechanics. I never once heard any of them called

Brazil at one point had basically all of oWOD Revised coded

(Also I have no clue what RPI is.)

@helvetica said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

@catzilla Narrative power sets (1-2 paragraph explanation of range and min/max impact) with a baseline skill to roll.

the only OC-only game I remember really taking off used Mutants & Masterminds but I didn’t log into anywhere but Shang for a decade so i could be missing dozens of examples

@renaveleigh said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

@Colette It’s the same people, doing a variation of the same theme. It is the post-Crisis version of LnL.

Which is Post-Secret Wars HA, which is Post-Dark Crisis UH, which is post-Ultimate Invasion HMUX, which was post-Unity 2000… whatever, you get the point.

Just the same people doing the same scenes as the same characters with the same people also with the same characters. Over, and over, and over, and over again, like some Rust Cohle nightmare involving tights.

(Fun side note, Rogue’s been able to control her powers for like 15 years in the comics and I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody do a version other than a teenager who can only touch people in elaborate bondage scenarios. Because Rogue has been played by the same person on almost all of these games.)

Keeping all player actions is always hilarious. During UH’s last activity spike a few years ago, which ground to nothing when staff didn’t want to do apps, it had been seven years since anybody had played Raven. A character so popular you tend to see her open only slightly more often than Batman. Why? Cus nobody wanted to deal with years worth of somebody else’s bullshit that had “grown” a character into something absolutely no one else would ever be interested in dealing with.* I call it the Chaucer Fairchild Principle. (Somebody did pick Raven up on UH, but only after being given permission to rewrite the entire app and throw out all existing “history.”)

*pointless anecdote example, when I was a kid Power Girl opened on BnB and I had her for maybe a day before finding out that like she was engaged to Blue Beetle or something and I’d need to have their relationship end IC, so I just never logged in again

@Colette said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

attempted to create an approximately comics-accurate merge of DC & Marvel status quo.

In no meaningful way has that ever been true except for major tentpole characters, and even with them primarily just the FF and Superman. On UH, the New Mutants was an infamous clusterfuck because half of us were our comic ages, mid 20s, and half of us were teenagers - just like some of the core X-Men. When a friend wanted to play Oracle, she was approved and then unapproved because, quote, “Batman would put her in a robot body.” On HA, I needed to get Dr Doom’s permission to say he was the origin of Titania’s powers. At a point when Batman Beyond was running around in the present in comics, Terry was repeatedly ruled a banned character because somebody on staff decided it would cheapen and age Batman and got very angry about it.

Even when it wasn’t explicitly enforced, these games have always been predominantly Year One. It’s one of the reasons all of them are so generic. Two different games but there is no meaningful difference between the SuperHero MUSH of 1998 and SuperHero MUSH of 2026, just as there’s no meaningful difference between them and HMUX, UH, HA, and the other who-knows-how-many games that have used the exact same setup in the time I’ve been online.

@Meg

@Meg said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

@helvetica said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

Anyway, I do miss the originality of OC-centered superhero games that were going for a couple years. I love marvel comics/x-men verse, but these everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mu*s…~

yeah, even if i did rp, you’d never catch me on the ‘fuck it let’s have gotham and new york city in the same MU*’ game. it bothers me, because canonically, batman and tony stark exist in entirely different worlds.

i hate them so much that someone once yelled at me to stop calling them potpourri games even tho they are literally just a bunch of shit in a bowl

Rena and I did a massive amount of theme and background work for a San Francisco-based Marvel game set immediately prior to Secret War that was intended to feature the formation of a PC Illuminati and then we never did anything with it, like the true artists that we are

@catzilla said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

@Prototart said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

the guy behind every giant desc with cut and paste names and giant ass cheeks grinding together and tits so big they have to “enter a room sideways,”

I’m not even joking, I have one of them saved somewhere. At his peak like 80% of female comic characters on Shang were using one of his goofy descs. For years it was impossible to make anybody he’d heard of there without pagelocking him because he’d page you ever five or ten minutes without pause.

Shang has a rule where you can’t post more than once in a 24-hour period on their request board. Why? Because he would make a post, wait fifteen minutes, delete it, and repost it.

Shang has a rule where you can’t advertise looking for characters from media. Why? Because all of his posts would be a grocery list of superheroines he wanted to see with bean bag size tits and 2L nipples.

@Coin said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

@sao said in What's up with the two Age of Heroes games?:

Pretty sure in any hobby, any undertaking done by humans on this planet, if there is a way for a person to have even imaginary authority and/or influence over other humans, there is going to be an issue with sex pests.

I mean, yeah. I don’t get this whole “man, that one genre, those people, so bad!” And it’s almost always someone who plays in that genre, too; like, you counting yourself, or are you the pristine exception, my dude? lmao

My experience is that there’s been some change in other genres. Not a lot, but when there’s a WoD or whatever place that’s run by abusive, manipulative weirdos who give free rein to sex pests, it tend to cause a stir.

On comic games? Not so much. When Claremont and Ditko were first outed on UH, maybe 20 people left total and most of those - including Chaucer - eventually just went back.

I think it’s more common, and I think it’s viewed as more acceptable. I especially think most people simply don’t give a shit unless it’s directly impacting them.

Of course, it’s also just that all of these games have been run by the exact same people, shedding 1 or 2 each “new” game, and the only lesson any of them ever learned was, “try to keep it quieter.” This crop goes back at least to HeroMUX, which was 2012?

On the topic of “from 20 years ago,” I mean… yeah? JLee from Shang - the guy who ended up on Shang after he got banned from every Transformers game, who resulted in multiple rules being out in place on Shang because they didn’t want to just kick somebody off in the early days, the guy behind every giant desc with cut and paste names and giant ass cheeks grinding together and tits so big they have to “enter a room sideways,” who’s possibly the most infamous and persistent creep to ever become obsessed with 90s comics - was welcome on HA. And I know for a fact that there were complaints made. But he was active, so that meant the game was active, so that meant it was okay. And I know Moritz was there, too, still the same sleazy, racist asshole he was when he was hitting on teenagers in the 90s.

@Colette

So, to summarize:

“I think you’re leaving out a few details.”
“I posted everything when it happened.”
“I’ve seen that exchange.”
“Anyone can see it. I posted it.”

“You should post it.”
“I would never violate someone’s privacy.”

“Well, it’s me, so violate away. Also, I posted it all.”
“I respect the privacy of staff, too! Also, yes, it’s what you posted years ago.”

Enthralling.