My general guide for Not Being Creepy On Games, which is by no means inclusive, but will catch…at least 80 percent of basic creepiness:

1. Be honest and straightforward about what sort of play you are looking for. There’s nothing wrong with being there primarily for the TS OR primarily for the combat OR whatever, but:

2. Accept without complaint or attempt to ‘win someone over’ when someone is not interested in the RP that you want.

3. Do not solicit real life details from other players. If they want you to know, they’ll volunteer it.

4. Do not share more than basic RL details to anyone who has not specifically asked. Freely shareable details may include the general line of work you’re in, what region of what country you live in, or the sort of hobbies you would tell your grandmother about. Details that no one needs to know unless they’ve specifically asked and you feel truly comfortable sharing with them may include but not be limited to: your address, your real name, pictures of any part of your body, your kinks, your salary, and any hobbies that you would not be comfortable explaining to a ten year old in front of their loving parents who are also holding shotguns.

5. No is a complete sentence. If someone says that they DO NOT want to do a thing, no matter what that thing is, then they do not have explain themselves and you should not try to persuade them to do the thing. That includes ‘talking to you’ or ‘playing with you’.

6. If someone says “Stop”, OOC, then stop. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. If someone says “Stop”, IC, then stop, and make sure OOC that they are enthusiastic (not just ‘will tolerate’) about the direction a scene is going in, and let them know that if the scene is not fun for them at any time, you can absolutely do something different or end it without any sort of argument or retribution. Then follow through with that.

7. If an IC event is going to involve harming, humiliating, dominating, punishing, or otherwise doing something painful to another character, check in proactively with the player, and work out boundaries for the scene OOC. This doesn’t have to mean planning out every moment, but you want to establish early and often that communication is good, and that just because someone’s PC is on the bottom of the IC event, it doesn’t mean you’re trying to harm or punish the player. It’s a game. Everyone should have fun.

8. Remember: Nobody on a game owes you anything. Not other players. Not staff. They don’t owe you scenes, or benefits, or specific relationships. No, even if it is written into character backgrounds - it’s a game, and people change. If someone doesn’t scene with you for a while, don’t assume that it’s because they’re avoiding you, or they hate you, or because they’ve been stolen away by that TS hog over there. Usually, it has nothing to do with you, but if you throw a tantrum over it, it WILL. And also, you will be creepy.

9. Helping a new player is not an exchange. Do not do it if you think you’re going to “get something” out of it, or that the new player’s character is going to owe something to yours. Especially do not page new players to see if their character is available for relationships for your desires - and if it is not, do not advise them on how they ‘should’ change their character so it is.

10. Comments on PBs or descs should be family friendly. Again, imagine the ten year old and the parents with shotguns. Do not volunteer the various sexual things you desperately want to do to the actor whose face a character has - or anything you’ve done to your self while looking at a gallery picture or desc. Ten year old. Shotguns. Don’t.

Hey all,

Putting my mod hat on for a moment. After talking with the rest of the mod team, we’d like to ask that you not include screenshots or links from MSB in this thread, or use this thread as a method to encourage, cheer, or organize action towards the other board. We know that people are sore about what happened, and this remains a place to vent about those events, but not to create or continue an atmosphere of cross-board drama. Thank you all!

As always, please feel free to discuss this decision in the discussion thread.

I wish I could get into something. There are several games that are, theoretically, up my alley, run by people I like who do things I enjoy.

But just can’t muster the energy. I feel bad, because I want to play with people and I have fun. But just nothing sticks to me right now. Hoping that if I don’t force it, I’ll rediscover my mojo at some point.

foksthery said in MU Peeves Thread:

@bear_necessities your friend is a fucking gaslighter who was really weird to me elseMU to the point where being on the same game as them made me super anxious and I was doing my best to respect their boundaries and drove myself batty. I should have left on my own. That was on me. You were right to boot me. No quarrel there.

I’ve removed the ‘at’ for foksthery because she’s said she’s not reading the forum anymore, and it doesn’t seem fair to ping her.

However, by context, it’s pretty clear that she’s referring to me, here. Because the previous incident of me being “really weird” and “gaslighting” her is on MSB, I’m going to summarize it here, in case those things go away from MSB at some point. You can find the details - including quotes of logs - on MSB if you care to.

The previous game was The Network. I was playing a character with wings, her character indicated that she was going to take his feathers without permission to put in her pillows. I OOCly mentioned that I found that a bit creepy, she said she didn’t care, her character was doing it, and I just decided not to argue about it. Later, a couple of people were making jokes about stealing my character’s feathers, and I asked people to stop - I freely admit it’s a stupid thing to get weirded out about, but it just hit me wrong and I didn’t want it to be a running joke. She said something about not realizing it upset me, I pointed out that I’d mentioned that in the scene.

She paged me with this big, anxious apology, and followed up with something like, by the way, don’t ever call my character ‘exotic’ again. Then vagueposted on MSB about it. Problem was, I’d never done that - and it being an Ares game, I had the logs to prove it. She tried to backpedal about how it wasn’t about me, so I pointed out that there’s no logs backing up the idea that anyone had done so. At which point she broke down, apologized (almost exactly like her apology earlier in this thread) and I figured it was over.

Later game, Santa Rosalia, I realized she was on the game. I had advertised for a play group I was putting together, and she signed up. I reached out to her, let her know who I was (I don’t have an Ares handle), and that I really prefer not to run anything for her or play with her. She was very understanding, and we avoided each other from then on. I gave a head’s up to staff so that they wouldn’t put us in any GMed scenes together if it could be avoided. I genuinely thought that was the end of it, and didn’t much think about her after that.

So, that’s the story, as far as I know and understand it. Whether I’m manipulative or a gaslighter, I guess I leave to everyone else to decide.

There’s nothing quite like running a session where every player is engaged in the scene and having fun, even when things don’t go perfectly. Tense IC, chill OOC, and just a whole lot of fun from start to finish. It reminds me why I love to GM.

I won a writing contest and will be paid for my fiction for the First Time Ever.

I think this thread is valuable as a venting thread, but I also think we should be careful that we’re not encouraging or organizing trolling on the other board from it.

It would honestly be better for everyone if we just left them to…whatever thing they’ve got going on there. With only themselves for company. That’s probably consequences enough.

@Sam-Hyde said in Bannings:

I’ve been a pretty long-time lurker on MSB, logging in occasionally just to see if a new game got advertised (increasingly rare), and I must say that it’s a good thing you had a split. Also the people who make new games tend to get run off for various reasons. Not sure how much of a fan I am of that.

This is something that has concerned me, as well. If I have any ‘hopes’ for this board, it involves the Helping Hands subforum, and that there will be room for people to talk about interesting ideas without having those ideas instantly shot down by people who have very specific ideas of how MU*s ‘should’ work and are all too gleeful to talk about how trying anything else is doomed, DOOMED and will never survive.

It’s something that I’ve heard game designers and potential game designers talk about for years and when people are already considering putting hours and hours of work into something, having a bunch of people all too ready to pour buckets of cold water on any idea that isn’t exactly like five hundred games that have gone before is very discouraging.

Generally, for me, the corroboration I need on these kinds of things is how people react when it comes out in the open.

If you get a lot of unrelated people not under the power of the accused saying, “That doesn’t match my experience at all with this person, and I just don’t see it,” then I’m skeptical.

If, on the other hand, a lot of unrelated people not under the power of the accused come out and say, “Oh thank god, someone finally said something. This is absolutely what I’ve seen/experienced,” then I’ve rarely ever seen that be wrong.

Abusers rarely target just one person, and over years, they build up quite a trail of destruction. You don’t really need receipts; generally you just need people to feel comfortable saying, “Me too.”

For the record, just as a player, I would love to have less focus on what’s going on over there. If I wanted to read what was happening on MSB, I’d go to MSB. The cross-forum drama doesn’t necessarily need to be escalated by breathless reporting back to here.

At a certain point, it starts to feel like people are trying to stir things up and keep drama happening.

I will say I have returned to A Place after doing A Thing, and I take back the ‘not as dark’ comment. It can definitely bring the dark.

NEVERMIND. Spoiler does not actually spoiler. Bah.

I’m playing it! I’m enjoying it quite a bit - love the characters, enjoy the combat, and the plot is a Dragon Age plot: perfectly serviceable but don’t look too closely at the gaps.

I think there’s still plenty darkness in the setting, but definitely overall the writing and focus is on a lighter, more hopeful tone. There are times I have to remember that IC time and location has progressed quite a bit from Origins, or even Inquisition (“wait, everyone knows the differences between spirits and demons and is cool with the former?” - sure, years after stories about the Inquisition has made the rounds, and in places like Nevarra and Tevinter where these things were always seen a bit differently. It does remind me that Ferelden is, let’s face it, the depressed Bible Belt of Thedas.)

I’m gonna smooch the necromancer. IT WILL HAPPEN.

I absolutely got scared away from doing an application to adopt a cat because the application wanted a lot of info I wasn’t comfortable giving out (my income, etc.) and they wanted to do a walkthrough of my apartment as a second phase. Just not comfortable.

Luckily, the Cat Distribution System provided.

@Snackness But there’s no use crying over it.

@RightMeow said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

I know this is a first world problem and people have it way way way worse but…

I am over my current career. However, the idea of changing it makes me tired. The idea of finding a new job is annoying because I’m at a certain pay range that I don’t really want to lose. I don’t hate it, but I’m burned out in it. I feel too old to start something else (and probably too tired now). I just feel stuck.

Like I said, not the worst vent to have but it’s where I am.

Kind of in the same place.

I’m not exactly over my current career, but the workplace has changed to where we’ve lost our big contracts that were meaning we weren’t having to do the funding scramble, and I hate the funding scramble. I want something with a bit more stability, and I want to leave on my terms before the funding runs out and I have no other options.

But I absolutely despite the job search, I also don’t want to lose my decent salary, or my progress towards student loan forgiveness. And I don’t feel like I can be as adventurous as I might otherwise be because my elderly father lives with me and I pay all the bills.

Also, I’m generally lonely and crushingly sad about various things, including the utter failure of my writing, so it’s just like every day is stumbling blindly, hoping not to get hit by any disasters but never really being happy.

Just a gentle reminder to everyone that while the discussion about a fight over political discussions on another game is fine, we’d rather not see it become a way for people to have a political discussion by proxy here. People have been good about this so far, it’s not a ding on anyone, but just keep it in mind since things tend to drift the longer a discussion goes on.

On the other hand, fight over Lex Luthor’s presidential policies all you want.

@imstillhere said in MU Peeves Thread:

I will do the lifting to set it all up, I don’t usually mind.

What I mind is the person who says “I want to rp!” and then they say “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any ideas. What character would you like me to be? LOL!”

At least pick which of YOUR OWN characters you want to be, come on now. I’m not doing that for you.

This is also one of my peeves. I don’t want to choose your alt for you, and the fact that you have asked me to do so kills at least 20 percent of my interest in scening with you, because what it says to ME (whether you mean it that way or not) is that you have no particular ideas or interest in specific character interactions between our two PCs.

I do love a good, structured downtime between major arcs, whether those are episodes or just metaplot pushes. It’s nice to have some time where you know you can relax a little and pursue some slice-of-life or personal drama without the “tea party in the zombie apocalypse” issue.

But I do think you have to be careful about how long those times are. The Network tended to feel a little too long for me, but I think that’s also because it was such an isolated setting and blank slate characters. I could see being more chill with a longer downtime if it was like - the ‘episodes’ were missions into alien territory, and then the ‘downtime’ was being back at home base, having access to all the NPCs and your character’s life to pursue.

Balance in all things, I suppose. And making sure the downtime still has something hooky for people to poke at - this doesn’t have to be a mystery or something staff-run. If, instead of full amnesia, you had a situation where specific chunks of someone’s memory were gone at the start of the game, and each downtime they could pursue and ‘reveal’ that part of themselves if they wanted, it would be very player focused, but still give that feeling of ‘pursuit and revelation’ that could keep restless players engaged over the lull.

And it doesn’t have to be memory. In a horror game, it could be player-led additions to the setting - each downtime you get to create a piece of the town or an artifact in the creepy vault, or whatever, and explore its curse and backstory. Or if you’re in a weird magical school setting, every downtime each character gets to work on and demonstrate a single magical project. Just something to provide enough structure for people who need it.

@imstillhere said in MU Peeves Thread:

IMO, it’s not great to take a stance like ‘the church is in control of reproduction’ unless players are explicitly allowed to take a swing at that institution and that massive social control. Are they allowed or encouraged to make motions back to their own autonomy? Fuckfruits for all?

‘The church is in control of reproduction’ is one thing. ‘The church is in control of people’s bodies and everyone is chill with this IC because that is our ooc policy’ is uhhhhh less good.

I’m going to push back on this.

A game should disclose elements of its IC setting which are going to be dealbreakers for people. If you read an element of a game that is a dealbreaker, and decide “Oh man, don’t want to play there because that’s not something I’d find fun,” that’s good! The system is working, and now that game can select for players who will engage with the setting in good faith, and the players who would hate that setting can go elsewhere.

But saying, “Oh, I hate that element of the setting, so it’s a bad game unless you let me make a character who will try to dismantle that setting because of my OOC dislike for it…” well, that’s not good. That’s a dick move, unless the game is specifically set up to be ‘about’ cultural revolution.

Let other people have fun doing their thing. You don’t have to be involved. Not everything has to be for you, and no game should feel obligated to cater to or support characters that are just there to be disruptive because their players don’t like the setting.

@GF said in MU Peeves Thread:

There are so many questions.

If everyone in the game world is infertile, then what other changes are there? Do people menstruate? How common is sex, and how common is sexual impotence? Do people in this world where only fruit can make babies have a biological urge to have sex? Does the fruit, in addition to making your eggs drop and your wigglies wiggle, act as an aphrodisiac? Are people even sexually dimorphic when not under the effects of the fuck-fruit?

Oh gosh, this would be so interesting. I would absolutely play a game where humans were basically sex-neutral until they ate a catalyst and suddenly gained sexual organs. Especially if it wasn’t fixed and you couldn’t guarantee which ‘organs’ you would gain with each dose. What’s THAT society look like?