MU Peeves Thread

[MisterBoring]

@RightMeow said in MU Peeves Thread:

It’s just not enough hours in the day and then the guilt of not including others.

This used to be me, but I think now, going forward if I do run a game again, it will be “If you make it to plot, awesome. If you don’t, well, I hope you find something interesting to do.” or “I’m limiting this game to a maximum player count I think I can responsibly handle, and once we hit the limit, no PCs will be approved.”

[Gashlycrumb]

@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Gashlycrumb we sure could

I think you mean, “I” by “we” and forgot the “wish.” As in “I sure wish I could openly accuse Gashlycrumb without anybody finding out that my ‘evidence’ is hearsay, speculation, and affirming the consequent.”

[Gashlycrumb]

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

The subgroup of players that exist across all MUs that I refer to as “The Job Mill”. These players will generate more jobs than the entire rest of a game’s players combined, in some extreme cases multiple jobs a day.

For players outside that group, this is a frustrating explaination for non-responsiveness. Certianly the unending job-mill could tire a staffer out, but “I am too busy responding to a small extremely active group to get around to you,” just makes people wonder why you don’t do one job from each person who has one open, and get to those second and third and sixteenth ones from Job-Millers after you’ve dealt with the one from the guy who hasn’t made a request in weeks.

@Noraaa said in MU Peeves Thread:

But for me, I think the fatigue mostly comes from what I’d call a “creative tax.” When you tell stories for folks, you put your love and energy into it. But you are not drawing from an endless well. Creativity comes in bursts and windfalls, and there are droughts. The ask is that you basically draw from an endless well, though.

This is totally legit. Staffers should say it when it happens. I think players will understand. Of course, if you tell me that you’re just drawing a creative blank on my PC and don’t know what to do with him, I’ll probably want to talk about stuff I’d like the character to do or have happen to him.

I wonder how much resentment of players comes from feeling that creative exhaustion and associating it with the player who just happened to be the one in your queue when the block attacks.

[MisterBoring]

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

Certianly the unending job-mill could tire a staffer out, but “I am too busy responding to a small extremely active group to get around to you,” just makes people wonder why you don’t do one job from each person who has one open, and get to those second and third and sixteenth ones from Job-Millers after you’ve dealt with the one from the guy who hasn’t made a request in weeks.

This is feasible on some games. On other games that are pushing huge numbers, the job glut can just be from the 60+ PCs currently approved on a game. If 60 PCs are generating jobs, then some players expecting a certain turnaround on their jobs are going to get frustrated.

[Gashlycrumb]

@MisterBoring That’s very true. Honestly, I don’t mind a slow turnaround and can be very patient (all my forum whinging aside). What grinds on me is observing that other characters are getting tonnes more shit done in the same time-period. If you do 'em all in order and some players flood your jobs system, they get to do more shit.

I always felt like it was rude to have too many jobs going at once, just like I wouldn’t send you a bunch of emails one after another without waiting for a reply. I was really happy with the ‘you can only have so many jobs open at a time’ feature. (I would add to it some sort of +request/FIRE function so a player with too many +jobs could make an emergency sort of one, but that’d be icing on the cake.)

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb “Affirming the Consequent” is my Ghost cover band. We do electro swing versions of their songs.

[MisterBoring]

@Gashlycrumb I think there’s honestly a lot of nuance and discussion to be had on job queues all together. There’s a whole gambit of different job writing styles out there. Some people pack all of their requests into one big thing, some people fire off dozens of jobs a week, and others barely submit any jobs at all. In addition to that, some people just absolutely cannot explain what they’re actually asking for in a job request for whatever reason that is. I’ve seen some absolutely baffling requests in the times I have staffed at games, and I know at least one of those people probably got frustrated and quit because I (and the other staff on those games) were missing their point entirely.

[Gashlycrumb]

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Gashlycrumb I think there’s honestly a lot of nuance and discussion to be had on job queues all together

Yeah. The original AnomalyJobs came with the coder as the headwiz yelling at people for using it wrongly and establishing by force of virtual lung-power, a standard for single-topic +requests and what sorts of things you could page about without being told it needed to be a +request, etc, and rode herd on the rest of staff about that, probably unpleasantly. As a gamerunner I had a vetting process for them that was meant to keep pacing more fair but would not have been robust enough for a game with the level of GM involvement and plot complexity I wish for lately.

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

some people just absolutely cannot explain what they’re actually asking for in a job request for whatever reason that is

I know I’ve been that guy. Well, my hyperbolic joke about it is that there are those staffers where you ask if your PC can have a housecat and they tell you that a talking green ridable tiger isn’t themely, and you try to explain housecat until they get sharp and you feel anxious and bad about it and still don’t know if your PC can get a kitten. But of course in actuality it’s nothing simple like a kitten, it’s some complicated scheme that I’m explaining badly.

[Kestrel]

Had a friend who consistently talked shit about other people in the hobby, and wrote them off over the most minor provocations which were generally misunderstandings.

I feel like over the years of our friendship, I have accumulated hours of lost energy trying to smooth things over between them and mostly benign enemies they’d misinterpreted, but I did it because I knew that at least some of the time their concerns were founded. and so it made sense to be extra guarded even over times where concerns weren’t founded. And I’d consistently defend them to other people as being a genuinely good person and a phenomenal writer/RPer, just someone who’s a bit touchy and needs some patience/understanding.

I guess idk why I’d be surprised after all these years to find myself on the other end of the stick, discarded and written off and shit-talked to our mutual friends, but ouch, does the feeling of betrayal really sting.

[RightMeow]

@Kestrel I’ve said this before and I stand by it. Anyone who has had that betrayed feeling. Not just saying but truly feeling it; it is the worst heartbreak that has ever been felt on different levels.

I’m sorry you are going through that.