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MU Peeves Thread
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I need someone to remind me how to RP. I’ve forgotten because it’s been like…seven months.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:
I need someone to remind me how to RP. I’ve forgotten because it’s been like…seven months.
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@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:
when the same person you don’t really wanna hang with keeps coming pre-attached to interesting stuff you wanna do or get invited to
This. SO MUCH THIS.
My default strategy for people I don’t particularly like is to just not interact with them. When I feel like I’m expected or required to because of roster backgrounds, plots, IC politics, or because an NPC said so, it stresses me the eff out. I can handle interacting with people because I knowingly chose to do so, but when I feel like I’m not allowed to avoid them or will face some sort of consequence for doing so, it always goes terribly and I hate it.
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Yeah if someone I don’t want to interact with is involved with something I usually end up melting through the floor and disappearing. Sometimes it’s a bummer, but. Man, the alternatives are worse.
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Honestly, I love how healthy people’s stances on this are here.
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.
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@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.
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My peeve is… not too serious, so if you do take it very seriously… that’s your personal choice. But it has happened three times now with three different people. If you don’t know me and this is our first OOC interaction, do not call me “Daddy.” Just like, hold off on shit like that. Pump the breaks. Happy holidays.
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@helvetica said in MU Peeves Thread:
If you don’t know me and this is our first OOC interaction, do not call me “Daddy.”
Wow, I can actually taste how unpleasant that is. It’s bitter, almost like chewing aspirin. Jesus.
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@helvetica said in MU Peeves Thread:
My peeve is… not too serious, so if you do take it very seriously… that’s your personal choice. But it has happened three times now with three different people. If you don’t know me and this is our first OOC interaction, do not call me “Daddy.” Just like, hold off on shit like that. Pump the breaks. Happy holidays.
I could live a long fucking life without ever hearing it ever, whether I’m the target or not.
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Also dealing with cool shit and / or story being gatekept by a player who is just deeply unpleasant to be around. It’s better for everyone if I’m not inflicting my presence on someone I don’t like, but damn, it still sucks.
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@Juniper Yes, this is the genuine worst, and I am sorry.
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@helvetica said in MU Peeves Thread:
If you don’t know me and this is our first OOC interaction, do not call me “Daddy.” Just like, hold off on shit like that. Pump the breaks. Happy holidays.
Whatever. You’re not my REAL dad! I don’t have to do what you say!
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who is just calling people “daddy” out of the blue? jesus.
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There is a game I am on where I signed up for an event. At the event, was a particular person.
This person, for want of a better word, has a bit of a fan club on this game. People talk about this person a lot; they seem to have a lot of close friends, and people respond super enthusiastically when they do things, log on etc. etc.
I do not begrudge this person any of this, and to be honest, they do not seem to do anything to encourage it. From my point of view they do not do anything to -warrant- it, either. But, I am prepared to accept that is very subjective.
In this event, which was just a one-shot adventure-type thing with some light combat, I ended up nearly walking out part way through because this person’s fan club was so busy gushing over this person and trying to interact with this person that my character was totally ignored.
This happened multiple times, where the rest of the group just played as though my character was not there. As an example, my character did X thing on their turn. I checked it with the GM, rolled for it, it was in my pose. Nobody referenced it in their pose, acknowledged it had happened, or anything like that.
In the next round, this person does a very similar thing (similar enough to the point of being redundant in the circumstances). The rest of the group are falling over themselves to (ic and ooc) tell this person how clever they are, how cool and badass their idea was. Even the GM referenced them doing this thing in their pose, ignoring that my character had already done it.
It’s not a major thing, but man is it irritating. I wasn’t going to mention it, but the talk of cliquey groups brought it all rushing back! I have been kind of light on the details as I don’t dislike any of these people or want them to feel bad. However, if the purpose of the scene is a self-congratulatory, feel-good session with your in-group, maybe don’t paste it as a public event and invite people you’re not really interested in including.
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@Pacha said in MU Peeves Thread:
a self-congratulatory, feel-good session with your in-group
this is maybe going to sound facetious or hyperbolic but you just described probably 30-40% of all public events I’ve ever personally attended in my time MU*ing and it’s honestly part of the reason game fatigue sets in for me so quickly in my old cranky-ass age.
there was an age I was more willing to just tolerate these little cults of personality (for lack of a better term) that crop up but like…who tf has the time and energy for that, honestly. it baffles me.
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@Rucket said in MU Peeves Thread:
who is just calling people “daddy” out of the blue? jesus.
makes a vague gesture towards the Sydney queer community between 25 and 35…
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@Pacha said in MU Peeves Thread:
In the next round, this person does a very similar thing (similar enough to the point of being redundant in the circumstances). The rest of the group are falling over themselves to (ic and ooc) tell this person how clever they are, how cool and badass their idea was. Even the GM referenced them doing this thing in their pose, ignoring that my character had already done it.
It’s not a major thing, but man is it irritating. I wasn’t going to mention it, but the talk of cliquey groups brought it all rushing back! I have been kind of light on the details as I don’t dislike any of these people or want them to feel bad. However, if the purpose of the scene is a self-congratulatory, feel-good session with your in-group, maybe don’t paste it as a public event and invite people you’re not really interested in including.
That’s a sign of lazy STing, honestly. I don’t claim to be the world’s best ST or GM, but to me it’s very important to make sure that all players are seen or heard from, and those that contribute in a meaningful way are amplified. A good ST can make sure that someone doing something brilliant has it called attention to and not get lost because the PCs are busy congratulating something else for existing. That’s something we really intent to focus on with what we are building. We love the idea of innovative solutions to story issues, and want to encourage that. Even if it’s not the solution we had in mind when we started.
As far as cliques and such go, they exist. There’s no way for them not to, and we thought really long and hard on how we were going to word our clique policy because we get that people want to play at games with their friends. That’s a lot of the point, right? We just tried really carefully to try to find a way to draw the line at how a clique can impact other people on the game.
I don’t want to force anyone to RP with anyone they don’t want to RP with, but I also don’t want to let that person’s preference block someone else out of RP.
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@Alveraxus I am skeptical that cliques are something that can be effectively policied.
let it be a challenge to you
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@sao said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Alveraxus I am skeptical that cliques are something that can be effectively policied.
Yeah, they can’t. The policy page that we wrote up literally says that we can’t, but that we want to try to encourage people to go outside their clique when they can as a general principle.
The only time we would get involved is if a clique is also gate keeping, which is a whole other thing.
Most games have cliques. Usually, a clique is harmless to other players if it just exists on its own off to the side, unless they are sitting on top of something that other players want to be involved in. Except in some cases where it can lead to bullying, which again, hopefully, can be addressed with awareness. At least, I’d like to think so.
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@Alveraxus said in MU Peeves Thread:
@sao said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Alveraxus I am skeptical that cliques are something that can be effectively policied.
Yeah, they can’t. The policy page that we wrote up literally says that we can’t, but that we want to try to encourage people to go outside their clique when they can as a general principle.
The only time we would get involved is if a clique is also gate keeping, which is a whole other thing.
I think the big solution to this particular thing – that is, one player or a small group of players controlling an area of plot that more people should have access to – has to be solved on the staff side. And not by saying “you have to RP with these people about this thing,” but by simply giving more people access via GM fiat. If a plot thread isn’t spreading as much as you want, figure out how to drop more clues in the laps of other people who aren’t involved yet.
I just don’t think there’s ever a “general principle” here to even encourage people to do, really; people are motivated to RP with others for the fun of it, and you can’t fix anything by making it into an etiquette thing. I honestly think the best approach is to simply drop your GM story seeds in the laps of a variety of people.
