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Comic Games Are Fun!
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Glorified internet chat rooms always come last. It’s not remotely time sensitive, I just find that “made time” line frustrating - like, what? That just rubs me the wrong way. Nobody talked to me, I responded to a job and 24 hours later, when there wasn’t a reply, I asked about it.
And honestly, it doesn’t really have much to do with a “character issue.” Like - I spent, maybe three hours on that app? It’s an untaken character I was familiar with, with an aesthetic I like, that I could use to do stuff with my friends in the HFC. Not exactly a passion project. The total lack of consistency across apps is definitely an issue that they need to address, and it’s the kind of thing that bothers me - like, if I wanted some batshit insane powerful character there’s Blue Marvel, Exodus, there’s a ton of ultra-powerful characters on their roster I could have got approved in under ten minutes. It’s an issue, but it’s not the issue.
The issue is a staffer using the Royal voice to insult and demean me as a representative of the entire game. And it’s not the first time he’s been wildly inappropriate with me - when I requested the character I have now he told me no, that I needed to go outside my comfort zone and maybe do something with the Titans (uhm, no), and then he immediately went Dark when I told him I was in fact a grown woman capable of making my own decisions. Frankly, that this is someone I was on relatively friendly terms with for a decade makes it even more inexcusable and indefensible than it would be on its own, and it would be entirely inexcusable and indefensible on its own.
It’s an ongoing pattern of behavior with him. Every single complaint I’ve heard someone make about staff on that game has been about Chaucer, both in the colloquial sense of “people complaining” and in the official sense of, people have issued complaints. He’s exploded at guests and players for asking if they could do things from comics he thought were stupid, each time prompting lengthy tirades about why the entire genre - and especially, what that person likes and wants to do - is idiotic. He’s made abrupt pronouncements on what is and is not appropriate for someone to play, and on HOW someone should play (IE, the character I apped could never do anything social - like, The Joker was being played until the Titans harassed him into quitting the entire game). He’s made sweeping changes to played characters without ever bothering to speak to the people playing them, which I know for a fact has led to people dropping them outright.
I don’t particularly give a shit about the character. I wiped all of the character’s traits and had Shakespeare take her off of my Account. It’s, whatever.
What I give a shit about is, is this kind of behavior condoned by the person who in theory runs the game? If I stay there, will I continue to get shit on by someone who’s only interest in being there, dealing with a genre he openly sneers at, usually appears to be writing an ever-expanding timeline everyone but the friends he writes into it ignores (including Shakespeare, who I truly believe has no idea how little in common the game has with Marvel and DC) unless they’re forced to drop a character because he rewrote their entire background to fit into it one day and occasionally making bizarre posts about The Right Way to MUSH or proudly introducing rules for stats the game doesn’t even have? If I try to play another character, will I get another tirade about what a piece of shit I am from someone who repeatedly and without prompting went over Shakespeare’s head to my benefit when he liked me?
That’s the issue.
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@Prototart said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
Glorified internet chat rooms always come last. It’s not remotely time sensitive, I just find that “made time” line frustrating - like, what? That just rubs me the wrong way. Nobody talked to me, I responded to a job and 24 hours later, when there wasn’t a reply, I asked about it.
The issue is a staffer using the Royal voice to insult and demean me as a representative of the entire game.
100%. And with this added context, it does sound like that’s the problem.
It just seemed like you were upset at the one person going above and beyond to try to make things better, too. And IMO he seemed to really be empathetic.
Although if he’s also ignoring systemic bad behavior, all the platitudes to the player don’t help.
Sorry for butting in there.
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I’m not mad at Shakespeare, no, merely frustrated that she appears to believe this is a character issue and not (another) instance of Chaucer being wildly unprofessional.
Either he’s completely unethical and needs to be dealt with, or staff there thinks it’s acceptable - among all the other things he’s done - to say shit like “you’re not worth our time and effort.” For not being active enough for his preferences. During a period where I’ve seen my dad collapse and shit blood everywhere. To read three pages of text.
There’s not really much wiggle room there.
I’ve had a shocking number of current and former players tell me that I shouldn’t have bothered, that this will all just be spun as me being a ~problem player who didn’t get her way~, and that I shouldn’t expect better from a group who had no problem with how UH was run until one of their friends went from enabling it to being targeted by it, but - call me naive, because I’d like to hope that a woman would understand how this shit is not at all okay.
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I’m gonna be real, I don’t really read this person’s responses as being “wildly unprofessional” or “completely unethical.” This quote…
This is a pattern of a player not interested in sustaining the game through RP and Claudine’s too much of an investment of time and energy on our part.
…probably doesn’t feel great to receive, but I don’t see an issue with the actual sentiment? It reads to me like “this particular concept would require particular time and investment from staff to work through to reach something that fits the balance of the game as it exists right now, and if we’re going to do that, we want it to be with a player who has more history on the game.”
I don’t know this guy, I don’t know the game, but I actually think “this particular concept doesn’t work for the game right now and it’s too much time investment for staff” is actually a pretty valid thing for staff to say. It seems pretty normal to me that some concepts staff would want a bit more experience with a player before working through, I’ve seen that plenty over the years. It doesn’t sound like it’s the time investment of “reading three pages of text,” I imagine it’s the time investment estimated for negotiation and revisions to make the character workable in the game.
she/her | playlist
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@Roz said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
I don’t know this guy, I don’t know the game, but I actually think “this particular concept doesn’t work for the game right now and it’s too much time investment for staff” is actually a pretty valid thing for staff to say.
He enthusiastically approved the concept before I made him mad, at which point I was no longer worth their time nor energy.
It’s a pattern of behavior. I wouldn’t care about “I don’t think this will work.”
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@Prototart did you make him mad, though?
I wonder how much of this wasn’t like-- being too eager to approve without realizing the extent of something. I know when I staffed with like, Roz and Tez and co, I would sometimes get excited and approve something only for them to later point out something in staff chat that I didn’t think of.
Then you have to be the one to bear the brunt of like, yeah this was a premature approval, sorry about that. But mostly it doesn’t seem like there’s anything between the approval and then the take back of the approval that would have made him mad? So it had to be something on the staff side that changed; which, could be someone else pointing out the amount of work. Or am I missing context?
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@Meg said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
@Prototart did you make him mad, though?
I’ve known him for like a decade. So, yeah, I’m pretty confident in saying when he steps beyond his usual condescension to actually being angry about something. I’ve been told no plenty of times, including there, including by him
The “premature approval” note is because he thought it was just a concept pitch (which he loved) and not the entire app as well. When I questioned him during the app, it went from “give me a few days on this” to “You’re not worth it.”
The context of the game is that it’s a comic game. Somebody played Joker there. There are immortal vampire serial killers. It is, even for a comic game, an insanely high-power environment. Nothing about any of my shit was out of place, he just got pissed at me and does what he does when he doesn’t like something - yells.
ETA: like, I realize some people want to assume the best, but this has nothing to do with concept shit. If a character has at any point there been approved, they go on the roster. If you pick up a character on the roster, approval is automatic if you don’t want to make changes. There are multiple characters on the roster who could destroy entire continents and are totally irredeemably insane.
It’s not that something didn’t work, it’s that he got mad.
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@Prototart said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
The issue is a staffer using the Royal voice to insult and demean me as a representative of the entire game. Frankly, that this is someone I was on relatively friendly terms with for a decade makes it even more inexcusable and indefensible than it would be on its own, and it would be entirely inexcusable and indefensible on its own.
What I give a shit about is, is this kind of behavior condoned by the person who in theory runs the game? If I stay there, will I continue to get shit on
If I try to play another character, will I get another tirade about what a piece of shit I am
I don’t know anything about your history with this game/staffer, but I’m just going to say : characterizing that denial as “shitting on you” or “insulting and demeaning you” or going on a “tirade” about “what a piece of shit” you are is …bad. This is bad arguing, and it is bad for your name cred.
Like, someone can do something wrong or questionable without it having to be a Dire Personal Insult.
fr fr
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@hellfrog said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
I don’t know anything about your history with this game/staffer,
You’re right, you don’t.
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@Prototart Doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t show the things you claimed (that I quoted).
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@Prototart said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
It’s not that something didn’t work, it’s that he got mad.
That sounds like something didn’t work, then. If he got mad and subsequently didn’t want to deal with you, but still maintained a level of professionalism when telling you they don’t want to deal with you? That’s… fine.
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sigh
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@Roz said in Comic Games Are Fun!:
…probably doesn’t feel great to receive, but I don’t see an issue with the actual sentiment? It reads to me like “this particular concept would require particular time and investment from staff to work through to reach something that fits the balance of the game as it exists right now, and if we’re going to do that, we want it to be with a player who has more history on the game.”
I just wanted to butt in here to say that, like-- while there might be SOME validity to this sentiment on other kinds of games, the sort of comic book free-for-all which Heroes Assembled is just is not one of them.
‘You can’t play this character because you aren’t active enough’ makes sense in the context of someone wanting to play a vampire noble on a WOD game, or the head of a great house on Arx, or one of eight available FCs on a Star Wars game where FCs function more as quest givers and narrative support than PCs in their own right… but this is not in any way one of those games. This is a game where Prototart or ANY OTHER PLAYER, including brand new ones; including ones who cannot manage more than two garbled lines about how awesome they and they alone are per pose; including people who will or already do log in expressly to do one scene/month with a single other buddy then log out for the next 21/28 days to skirt activity rules could grab:
- Franklin Richards (superpowers: can do anything)
- Blue Marvel (superpowers: Superman, only with anti-matter powers and no kryptonite)
- Carnage (superpowers: completely irredeemable murderous sociopath with body horror knife bullshit)
- Ikaris (superpowers: Superman, only for some reason he also teleports and has the organic supercomputer the New Gods use which, itself, confers a ton of EXTRA abilities; no weaknesses except radion, which is extremely rare, and ‘running out of energy after a few hours of being Superman’)
- Spiral (superpowers: interdimensional teleportation, witchcraft, and bodymodding; completely nuts; no weaknesses)
- Black Adam (superpowers: Superman; no weaknesses except for, I guess, ‘saying his own name’; antisocial with a god complex)
- Exodus (superpowers: omega-level telekinesis, which means his is more powerful than any non-omega-grade telekinetic’s could ever possibly be; telepathy, teleportation, energy vampirism; yet another villain)
from the game’s roster and have them approved inside of about two minutes without having to submit a single word of any kind of application. ‘This particular concept doesn’t work for our game’ is one thing, and it’s perfectly valid; ‘this particular concept would require time and effort from our staff to suit game balance and we do not want to expend it because you are not active enough’ is ludicrous to the point of insult. It’s a hurdle that simply does not exist for anyone else on the game, and wouldn’t (by rights; Chaucer/Halicron has absolutely tried to decree who 'tart can and cannot play based on his own estimation of what’s right for her, which is why there is a genuine question as to what she, specifically, is allowed to app, as her experience shows that the answer is apparently not the same for her as it is for anyone else) exist for Prototart had she just grabbed a roster character; in fact, she only attempted to write up the character she did because the one she WANTED (Selene (superpowers: telepathic immortal vampire witch who has credibly fronted as a goddess; irredeemable sociopath; zero weaknesses)) is, in fact, currently held by a person who… logs in once every 28 days to do exactly one scene with the same one-two people which does nothing to generate or move RP for anyone else.
There’s nothing to protect, no effort required on behalf of staff beyond what is required to read an app: game balance simply is not a thing on a fully consent-based superhero game which includes fully powered Kryptonians, Green Lanterns, Jean Grey as the White Phoenix of the Crown, Dr. Doom, and characters like those listed above as fully playable, immediately accessible options; the truth of it is that a Spoiler who simply did not want to sell anything for anyone is equally as capable of ruining a scene with twinky behavior as any ‘overpowered’ character. There ARE games which make a conscious effort to ratchet down character power levels across the board, preferring a lower powered environment, and while there are places in the news files which suggest players ‘don’t app at the height of their powers’ to ‘preserve a sense of growth’ (paraphrased) there is no overarching ethos of trying to maintain a more modest power scale for the entire game; neither the staff nor the majority of players seem to have taken that idea to heart at all, here.
So.
All that said: for someone to submit an app for a character they’re interested in at least ATTEMPTING to play – a villain character, which the game has relatively few of – with a detailed explanation of what she means to do, proof of her reaching out to other players to coordinate with them, and how she means to work the character in a way which limits her ostensibly high power level; receive an enthusiastic concept approval; then a day later be told that actually, no, the character is just too powerful and would somehow unbalance a game full of characters heroic and villainous alike who are similar to or vastly beyond what she is capable of… it’s a bizarre whiplash to say the least. For a staffer to arbitrarily decide that this is the antisocial villain character who’s so antisocial and villainous that someone who clearly has a plan for how to play her and with who is not capable of doing so is bizarre. To try and frame these things as the result of Prototart not being interested in enough in sustaining the game through RP is bizarre. To suggest that she’d present a uniquely heightened degree of investment from the staff is bizarre.
To do these things immediately after a player had the temerity to question the judgment of a man who has a history of condescending to others and trying to force them to follow his idea of what ‘good roleplaying’ is, well. It’s hardly the rudest, least polite thing which has ever happened in MU*ing, or which has been posted on a WORA-like forum even, but it’s pretty inappropriate; it is pretty clearly not the act of an objective, unbiased actor who deserves the benefit of the doubt. It’s blatant nonsense to anyone who is familiar with how games in this particular circuit operate, and indicative of Heroes Assembled’s inability to define, then consistently apply standards to its apping process.
Prototart’s someone who takes no shit from anyone and is happy to call out what she sees as bullshit in turn; she has an acid tongue and prestige levels in holding grudges. She is also a creative and generous player who deserves better than to be talked down to by someone whose idea of compelling roleplay is ‘what if The Wasp was a pillhead sociopath who thought it’d be a cool idea to fight crime by getting into the illegal drug trade’ in the course of an already-questionable app denial.
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Rena said everything I would have - in fact, she said many things I’ve repeatedly said in this very thread - but, really, thank you for explaining what this situation involving someone I have known for a decade is actually about. Total blonde moment, el oh el, you know how bitches get, smile emoji.
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So the game is shit, run by people who are shit, and played (not exclusively) by people who are shit.
Why d’you wanna play there, again?
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
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@Pavel Why do people play shitty WoD, Star Wars, or any other game in this hobby?
Because there aren’t any better options, their friends are there, and they intend to avoid as much of the shittiness as possible. This is not remotely unique.
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@renaveleigh Of course it’s not unique, nor did my question imply that it was. It’s still an important question for one to think about when this much hassle comes from simply trying to take a character from a roster.
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Honestly the three big issues with HA are thus:
The cult of Vorpal, who is a piece of shit asshole who drove my good friend from the game for the crime of saying ‘Maybe don’t be toxic about shipping comic book characters?’ regarding that group’s apparently vile hatred of Beast Boy x Raven.
Chaucer in general, who is a shithead asshole AND a bad writer with terrible ideas about how things should work all the while being a condescending fuckwad.
Finally, somehow the least egregious of the three being the fact that NOTHING HAPPENS. There’s no metaplot, there’s capped scenes run for cliques and groups and if you’re not in on them fuck you, drink coffee with randos to keep your character.
(Edited 'cause I typoed Vorpal)
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<Questions> Chaucer says, “This all circles back to one of the core concepts in the game, how ‘harmony’ works and how the mortal soul is the purest force of creation. It takes a soul to make a soul. Elf lords have fallen in love with mortals and if they love, and are loved in return, a soul can come from that. This is how you end up with demigods and half-fae and all those other interesting permutations. Also the unasked question is, ‘what becomes of a half-blood that never knows love’ and I am sure that’s how you end up making Old Gods, but I might save that for a story arc.”
would you ever guess that this is a Marvel/DC superhero game
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@Prototart “What becomes of a half-blood that never knows love” is maybe the yikesiest sentence I’ve read.
