Being published is a big deal. Gratz.
Posts made by Warma Sheen
-
RE: City of Glass - Discussion
@Wizz said in City of Glass - Discussion:
@hellfrog said in City of Glass - Discussion:
not to say i didn’t scream internally and externally when trying to actually USE my sheet.
thiiiis. I love Mage’s setting and themes to death and have been reeeaaally tempted, even started making a bit, but every time I look at the improvised spell chart in the books I want to start hooting and screeching like a baboon
What I do is to write out my most commonly used spells beforehand and work everything out while I have free time. Then I can copy and paste when needed and modify as necessary. It really helps to learn it.
-
RE: Celebrities We Lost 2024
@Testament said in Celebrities We Lost 2024:
This one kills me as someone who has very cherished memories of watching the Rocky movies with my grandfather. I loved Carl Weathers, and was happy to see his resurgence in The Mandalorian.
Same. RIP Action Jackson.
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@GF said in Liberation MUSH:
@Warma-Sheen Oh, I remember. Just seems weird to wait so long.
I actually don’t think its that weird. There’s a lot of reasons to wait. As the above posts show there are a lot of different people that have a grudge against the game and the people involved in it. So it could be any number of things. People take their funtimes very seriously. Here’s just a few reasons I can think of.
-
There’s the obvious idea that if it something like this happens right after an incident, everyone will be pointing the finger at the person involved in that incident. Since this is an actual crime, something you can go to jail for, you don’t want to go in hot and be the prime suspect. At least if you wait there’s time for other suspects to be viable.
-
Sometimes you leave off a situation feeling one way about, then later on realize that you view it differently in hindsight and have different feelings about it and what you want to do about it. Like, if you leave the situation feeling righteously justified and then find out that no one agrees with you, everyone wanted you gone for a long time, and everyone you thought were friendly with you come out to say you were the problem and that this is actually to everyone’s benefit, then your illusions might start to break down, especially about taking the high road. You might decide to try to ‘get even’ after taking months to realize you weren’t the hero in that story.
-
Sometimes other things happen in the intervening time that compounds the problem and triggers other reactions. Like, if you got kicked out of that game, but your behavior in that incident causes you to get you banned and booted from any other games you might want to play, but this world was basically your whole world and you spent 24/7 in it, but now you’re not allowed in any of those worlds and you can’t do the thing you really liked doing and instead have to fill your time with lesser fulfillments, then that could build up some serious angst over time until you do something silly and illegal, months after the initial incident.
-
It could not be targeted at all. It could be random. I mean, its not likely, but its always a possibility.
-
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@GF said in Liberation MUSH:
I know people DDOS websites for incredibly stupid grudges (I remember an internet reviewer whose site got attacked for not giving a video game a high enough score), so I wonder what imagined or real slight the attacker has against the game.
Scroll up…
-
RE: MU Peeves Thread
@Kestrel said in MU Peeves Thread:
I guess my MU* peeve is people who act like it’s exclusionary/cliquish/elitist/bad/sinful to just not hang out with people who don’t spark joy.
You laid down a spectrum of adjectives that aren’t all the same thing. I agree with some and not others. I know people probably won’t agree, but this is my personal opinion on these:
Exclusionary: It is absolutely exclusionary. You’re purposefully excluding certain people from your RP by deliberate choice. That’s basically the definition of exclusionary.
Cliquish: If you only RP with certain people, and especially if those same people only RP with the same other people, it would certainly be cliquish. That is how cliques operate. They stick together and don’t let anyone else in on the majority of what they do. It isn’t necessarily because of some ill intent. That’s just how things shake out sometimes.
Elitist: Whether this applies would depend on why you don’t like to RP with those people you’ve excluded. If you think their RP is just not good and the people you RP with are better, then that would be elitist for sure. But that’s a little muddier because there are certainly reasons you wouldn’t like to RP with someone, but not because you think they aren’t good people or their RP isn’t good.
Bad/Sinful: Not at all. There’s nothing wrong with only RPing in a way that is fun and/or interesting, exciting, etc. for you. It isn’t bad. It isn’t a sin. It is your fun time and time is precious. Too precious to waste it on things you aren’t enjoying.
But don’t shy away from labels or accusations that are true just because you think they sound bad. Own your decisions, don’t be shamed by them. It isn’t everyone’s responsibility to include everyone else. Is it nice to do so? Sure. But not compulsory. And it certainly isn’t all or nothing. Some days you might not want to put out the extra bandwidth to deal with new people or people that aren’t that exciting. And some days you might. That’s cool of you. You maybe improved someone’s day. But still, that’s not your responsibility.
At the end of the day, your time is yours to do what you want with it and if you want to spend it on people you know will be fun, rather than rolling the dice on an unknown or something that might be a slog for you, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Caveat: This doesn’t apply if you have an agreement with the staff or the game to RP with all others, which is often explicit when taking a roster character or a tiered original character or a staff position. In those cases, if you make an agreement to do a thing, then yes, it is bad/sinful to not do that thing you agreed to do. If that’s the case you should definitely give up those slots/positions and take one without any specific requirements and/or responsibilities on your fun.
-
RE: Ascension Sojourns
@MisterBoring Its a Mage (for now) game. You think there’s much a player can do as a Bygone that can’t be done as a Mage with a few ranks of Life?
That was a player problem. Not a playable character problem.
But I’m sure you know that.
-
RE: Ascension Sojourns
@mietze said in Ascension Sojourns:
Also helpful when the initial introduction isn’t by or involving someone who shuts down someone else’s game while in a rage/tantrum.
I thought that might have something to do with it in this particular case, but I didn’t want to be the one to say it publicly here. I’m a bit biased on the subject.
And that sucks for the game. Even though he’s been banned, the damage may already have been done. But knowing they gave him the boot gives me that much more respect for the place and @sonata.
Moves like that deserve the support of the community.
-
RE: Ascension Sojourns
@Pavel said in Ascension Sojourns:
I had a little peek in and the game doesn’t seem particularly active, and the wiki is almost entirely bereft of character pages.
Every game has to start somewhere…
I don’t know what makes some games open with 80 bajillion people immediately or why some start off very slowly. I would have thought a lot of people would have jumped on a new game with a completely different theme, but I guess I was wrong. Some people like the same old familiar settings.
-
RE: Staff Capacity
@Pavel said in Staff Capacity:
@Faraday said in Staff Capacity:
I still had to run most events myself
I only have my own anecdotal experience with which to remark upon this, but I believe this is due to three things (alone or in concert):
-
Staff-run plots always feel more important. Whether this is owing to the prestige of a staffer running things, a perception that staff-run plots have more of an impact than player-run, something else, or some combination of these, I can’t say.
-
Running things is hard, occasionally stressful, usually thankless work.
and
- Many, or at least some, people just don’t have the confidence to run things. That’s either confidence in their social adroitness, storytelling skills, or ability to concentrate and multi-task. I know that running things always triggers some sort of imposter syndrome-like sensation in me when I try my hand at it.
There’s probably a doctoral thesis in organisational psychology in trying to work out a solution to these issues.
I think 2 & 3 are very closely related. Depending on the game you’re on or the player base in it, the thankless part of running things is sometimes an optimistic outcome. Players like to complain a lot and argue a lot and when something doesn’t go their way, fits are easily thrown. It can be daunting to have to deal with when you know that if you forgot or made a mistake on one of the fifty bajillion details of the rulesets some games have, someone might rules lawyer or drama-splode all over your brand new ST hat. Most players go along and play along just fine, but it just takes that one pain in the ass to ruin your day and your ST-running experience to make you not want to try it anymore.
This is also one reason cliques form up, at least in my experience. Not to exclude people out of social superiority, but to have a safe group with people you know and trust to play in where you can feel confident that drama won’t erupt. Stranger danger is real. I know they have a bad rep, but I do see the appeal.
@Selira said in Staff Capacity:
@Pavel Regarding point one of this, I don’t know how you get around it. Player run plots often have significant lore deviation and, in games where there is a larger metaplot, need to be basically integrated back into that plot by staff. There’s always a lingering question of ‘is this really canon’?
I think that’s the point addressed by the @Roadspike practice of giving players plothooks and information on what staff has opened up for PRPs. It doesn’t just inform players on what PRPs they can run, but it lets other players know that it those PRPs are legit and canon. It also allows the staff to more easily incorporate those storylines into the metaplot so that what happens in them means something to the world around them. Too often PRPs are looked at as throwaway sessions that never connect to the other stories so they have no effect, which leads back to @Pavel 's first point on why staff end up having to run most scenes themselves, even if they open things to PRPs. Players are used to staff not taking PRPs seriously because they seem to happen in a vacuum so many don’t bother with them.
I think the root of all of this is a lack of trust between players and staff and STs on either side. A lack of trust makes it hard to feel confident to engage. Am I gonna set someone off? Am I gonna offend someone? Are these people gonna snark about me and my RP or PRP to everyone behind my back or on staff chan and kill any credibility or reputation I have built for other players to trust me? Those things. So building (or rebuilding) that trust is hard because of so many bad experiences people have had from both sides. And that’s something I don’t know how to fix.
-
-
RE: Staff Capacity
@spiriferida Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant that instead of all the burden of creating RP and running scenes being on the staff, the players are empowered with what’s necessary to easily take on some of that. In this way everyone on the game isn’t solely dependent on staff to keep activity going. That responsibility is spread around more evenly.
-
RE: Staff Capacity
@Roadspike said in Staff Capacity:
I’m also a big fan of “Current Adventure” pages like we used on The Savage Skies: a page that details the current metaplot, with links to subplots or concurrently-running plots, descriptions of common allies and enemies, a map if appropriate, some plot hooks to start scenes or plots, etc. It keeps players and staff on the same page, lets players run their own scenes, and gives one place for everyone to look for information about what’s going on at the time.
All this is something that I think would be really helpful in other places. It takes the entirety of burden off of staff and spreads the responsibility for people’s fun more evenly on everyone’s shoulders. Less burden on just a few people means less stress on them and more fun for everyone.
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@hellfrog said in Liberation MUSH:
@Pavel it was the era of downvotes, when no one could see who specifically had downvoted them. Except admin.
Snarking downvotes? Meh. That doesn’t rate, but that’s my own personal opinion. On its own its tame. In comparison to the kind of stuff encountered regularly on games and on here, it isn’t even a drop in the bucket.
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@catzilla said in Liberation MUSH:
@Pacha said in Liberation MUSH:
Interesting further info, for those following along:
lmao
Flips out and rage quits that Discord server for his friend not being able to make a transphobic ‘joke’ that multiple people were offended by.
Flips out and rage quits Liberation for someone he dislikes making a very clearly sarcastic unoffensive joke about kinfolk.
Is this dude for real?
I think he stopped worrying about people seeing his hypocrisy a long time ago. Values and integrity aren’t worth nearly as much as weaponizing outrage. It seemed like he’s been waiting to use something to try to take Theno down a peg and he wasn’t really getting anything. So he grasped for the first thing that seemed to be viable.
He took his shot at Theno and missed. I guess weaponized outrage doesn’t have the accuracy or damage that it used to. The stats on that might need to be updated in errata.
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@Wizz said in Liberation MUSH:
@Warma-Sheen said in Liberation MUSH:
spend months of your life researching, writing, and on a few occasions driving through LA in order to desc half of her ginormous, unnecessarily large grid to give her 200+ grid spaces and builds so that as many spaces and builds as possible were as accurate to the actual RL locations as they could be, all the way down to neighborhood blocks that had no notable features except for how much graffiti and trash were visible or how many and what types of cars were parked on the street.
…not to be dismissive of an upsetting experience with an unstable individual…
It gave me something to do to fill my time at a time when I needed to keep myself occupied and my brain focused on stuff that was not RL. And I like learning about cities. I had desced out a few cities for games before, but that was from looking and reading about stuff online. LA was one close enough that I could actually be there and I knew from other games that if a game I played on was set in LA, that would be something I’d do. Learning the history of places is one thing, but being able to see where it happened and then write about it and have others read about it, I enjoyed. I also liked the idea of someone playing at a place in the game and then being there one day and be like ‘Oh, wow I remember this from X game and this is actually kinda what I pictured from the description when I was playing’. And there were a few people who messaged me who lived or had lived in parts of LA and did tell me that I had gotten an area they knew down really well. That was cool.
Obviously, if I had known how everything would have turned out for me, I probably wouldn’t have put quite as much effort into it, but truthfully, I still would have done most of it, because I got as much out of it as the game did. Maybe more. I didn’t get or ask for anything tangible in exchange for it, like xp or favors, but I did think a little consideration from Sundance would be appreciated.
Like, just don’t conveniently forget when the guy you were warned was doing shady, unethical stuff does shady, unethical stuff to me and you acknowledge that he did shady, unethical stuff… but later announce that he never did shady, unethical stuff. Yeah. That just feels crappy to be dismissed/overlooked like that. Going through it was crappy enough. To be forgotten by one of the few other people who knew what had happened sucks. That consideration would have been nice.
But realistically, I don’t think Sundance forgot about me. Or my contribution. Or why I left. I think she made a calculated choice to do what she thought would be in the best interest of the game and people’s enjoyment of it. So she just straight up lied. The end goal was to protect the experience of the people who were still there from being tainted by the question of whether they had ever been screwed over by Polk and just never known it, with perception being more important than the facts.
As other people have said, she is consistent. She’ll do what she thinks she needs to do to keep her game going. If some people/ideas/values/integrity need to be sacrificed to make that happen, then so be it. And I know that sounds harsh, but I really don’t mean it to be. Sometimes there are no good choices, but choices still have to be made. I can both recognize that and be annoyed by it.
-
RE: Liberation MUSH
@Roz said in Liberation MUSH:
- Up to now, he had chiefly been someone who could save me a little time (which adds up considerably) by managing the wiki and website updates. Polk’s social IQ problems were not unknown. It’s why he only became Mage Director when Tris stepped down and there was no one else. And it’s why he was removed as Mage Director a year ago, and was relieved of any player-facing responsibilities as sub-director a while after that. He never did anything unethical (as a Director anyways) - but he could not deal effectively with people.
Well, that’s just not true. He very much did unethical things as Director.
Sundance(sun) pages: There’s two elements to this. The first element is 1) Polk should absolutely not have disapproved you on his own initiative. He knew that the moment he did it, and he already apologized to me in page about it, before I sat down. I had him immediately re-approve you, since I’m the only one who can carry out OOC discipline here.
I won’t say she’s just flat out lying. Maybe she just forgot, but he was definitely unethical as Director. Maybe she didn’t consider that situation because, in her view, she fixed it? (She didn’t actually fix it, she just reversed his decision, which still left a host of problems. Not the same thing as fixing it.)
But…
If she did just forget, I gotta tell ya, it sucks to have been so severely fucked over by Polk in the exact same temper tantrum, table flipping way and then forgotten about by Sundance like you never existed and didn’t spend months of your life researching, writing, and on a few occasions driving through LA in order to desc half of her ginormous, unnecessarily large grid to give her 200+ grid spaces and builds so that as many spaces and builds as possible were as accurate to the actual RL locations as they could be, all the way down to neighborhood blocks that had no notable features except for how much graffiti and trash were visible or how many and what types of cars were parked on the street. Granted, I did all of that willing and no one asked me to do the extras, but it is too much to expect that you and the reason you left the game not be forgotten about? Apparently, that might be.
So… hopefully it wasn’t the latter. That would blow.