While reading another thread (and I please ask people to keep that SPECIFIC conversation there), I got to thinking about the purpose of logs, receipts, proof, what have you.

I think it’s really easy to conflate the two things, and in fact sometimes people may be doing so in bad faith.

If I, as someone running a game, ask Alice for logs after Alice complaints to me about Bob, it’s not because I need “proof.” Logs aren’t proof. Logs are testimony, carrying no more weight than the accuser typing “p polk=Bob harassed me.”

The reason to ask for logs, is to know what actually happened. “Do you have logs?” from someone like me isn’t “Do you have proof?” It’s “Can you show me exactly what happened so I know what to do about this?”

I want to see what happened, what was said, and the context before I do things. Misreadings happen. Misunderstandings happen. Friendships are lost over such things.

But in the case of “Bob is pressuring me for sex RP,” that’s never going to be what you’re trying to do. Not at all. That’s an entirely different situation. Even if Alice is mis-reading Bob, you’re not going to try to get them to be friendly again. No.

Some folks are so used to the “due process” of “Do you have logs?” that they believe it’s proper to ask for them before dealing with ANY complaint. But that’s not the point!

Asking for logs isn’t about proof, evidence, due process, and all that. It’s about being a cool-headed third party to mediate a dispute.

In the case of an accusation of sexual harassment, that’s not the time or the place to be the cool-headed third party to mediate a dispute. That’s the time to separate the two at once, and to keep an eye on the accused.

Watch the accused. Does the accused’s behavior fit the pattern? Are there other complaints? Are you ready to take action to protect players from this player if there is a problem?

Getting the logs might help with that, but it’s certainly not required or even necessary to start the process.

In practice, sexual harassers in games do so serially. It won’t take long to get a few red flags and boot 'em.

I think logs are a red herring in most of these discussions.

I loved my run on Arx.

Good players, good GMs. Good experience.

When Ari died, it was exciting. And well, I basically could not find another character that could top that. So I drifted off.

I tried. I tried to find a character. I tried to settle back in. But I just could not find a good fit.

Ari was lighting in a bottle for me and I will always think fondly of that three year stretch on Arx.

@Arkandel I tend to assume people who HATE it really just hate that it gets used passive-aggressively. Because that’s really the only time it’s a whole “Oh you can’t respond to that IC” thing.

When I write things like that the usual intent is that “There are 20 subtle clues that tell you that this sort of emotion / attitude exists”

@Pavel Agreed. A game doesn’t have to last 5-10 years to be a success.

https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/give-a-shit/

Quitting games is hard.

@shit-piss-love Definitely a way to do it.

“My character is just being like most in the era”

“Yes, but most people in the era had miserable lives and never were exposed to the outside world beyond church and local community”

“Yeah but”

“You’re a PC. You’re special. You’re supposed to be different.”

@shit-piss-love Yes. Civility cannot be the only goal. Good faith engagement is also essential.

Someone who lies while all the protocols are followed, is as harmful as someone who breaks all the protocols.

@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:

OK, hear me out:

Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.

Space Nobleman, swerve

@STD said in JKER Temporarily Banned Discussion Thread:

@Polk said in JKER Temporarily Banned Discussion Thread:

Bad faith posting is generally worthy of some sort of administrative action.

I’ve no dog in this hunt (and haven’t even read the thread in question), and this might be a slight tangent, but…

The impression I had was that folk here generally assume bad faith unless they personally know the person making the post. At the very least, people sure to seem to assume bad faith about anyone who comes here to defend whatever game is currently being castigated. Many times that attitude ends up being warranted, I concede that, but it is still something about this forum that really bothers me. There are accusations of bad faith in this very thread discussing bad faith! It’s recursive bad faith! Bad faith all the way down!

I don’t know most of y’all. For me, my read on ‘bad faith’ is not from how well I know you, but my finely-honed troll radar from years moderating political comments sections.

Yeah.

I know how to spot the guy ‘just asking questions’ but is really pushing some unpleasant political view.

I know how to spot the guy who is looking to be disruptive.

I know how to spot the guy who is looking to provoke things to use against the community.

You learn how to distinguish someone who’s here to discuss, from someone who’s here with an agenda. That’s bad faith posting, in my view. If you’re not joining a community to engage with the community, but rather you’re here to use the community in some way, or attack it, or damage it, you’re not engaging in good faith.

JKER was not posting here to join here. JKER was posting here to get revenge for a perceived grievance elsewhere, hence the crazy DMs.

I forget the exact terminology, but Ari Corsetina was secretly the human pawn of some great old one. He was saved from the pirates who attacked the ship he served on, and threw him overboard, by a tentacle monster who saved him and then fought on his behalf to give him command of the ship.

The way I interpreted this, and played it, was to say look, Ari’s just a regular guy. He’s a man with a young family, who has to spend long periods away from them to provide for them. He’s a good, loyal guy who sacrifices of himself for others.

He’s not some dashing action hero. I’d say he’s comparable with a guy like Finn in Star Wars. He doesn’t have the special powers, but he’s dragged into all of this, and it tests him.

He eventually gets an inkling that Mirari Corsetina, his daughter, is mixed in with this, that Belladonna Pravus is mixed in with all of this. That everyone he works for, and fights for, and loves and respects, is benefiting from these deep dark powers.

And that power also wants him, and he can feel is watching him with its possibly-malevolent desires, every time he goes out to sea.

What do you do if you’re Ari in this spot? Your wife is dead. Your daughter is all you have left of your old life, and she’s somehow come through everything to a position of influence, comfort, and success. Are you really going to do anything that could possibly take that from her? Of course not.

Or Belladonna. The Pravus family was reaching new heights, and they’ve been very good to you. Are you going to betray them, or undermine them? No!

So what do you do if you’re Ari? You gratefully accept the Knighthood you are given. You quietly watch proudly your daughter do her thing. You serve your lords and ladies.

And when the burden of being watches, and courted, and groomed for some inhuman purpose is too much, you drink.

Mirari’s adopted sister kept stores of wine for trade. Ari frequently broke into those, because it was all he could do.

When he died, he died sacrificing himself at sea, in battle, for family and lords. The beings watching him lashed out when he died, but it was too late. He was at peace, having served those he cared for with all he had.

@mietze I wish more thought as you do.

@mietze I’ve run into players in the past who were frustrated because nobody wanted to play with them. I feel really bad about that sometimes so what will sometimes do is coach those players.

I can tell they don’t really know how to write. They come into this hobby for the role play and the socialization, not from a more text-based background. And well, they can’t write.

So I try to coach. The advice I usually give is: mind your spelling, mind your punctuation, and in every pose try to both respond/react to things other people did, AND do things that others could react to.

It’s so often that people will write very self-centric poses not because they’re self-centered people, but because they don’t know how to do this.

And it makes me happy when this coaching works, and I get told that it’s having ani mpact, they’re having more fun in a game.

The ability to write isn’t everything. But knowing the tricks for how to write in a MUSH, sure helps a lot.

I’m heavily influenced by Bill Amend in how I make MUSH characters.

He was once asked which of the characters in Foxtrot was him. His answer was, all of them. He put something of himself into the entire family.

I put something of myself into characters I make. It’s the easiest way I have to make them human.

Stealing a character is no trivial thing.

Direct copying is illegal in virtually every country under the Berne Convention and laws passed in most countries in the world to implement the treaty.

More subtle copying (changing a word here and there, but keeping most of the words/the structure) also can count. In the US the rule of “substantial similarity” applies. Making obvious attempts to EVADE detection are a factor to PROVE infringement, in fact.

Delete it. Warn the infringer. Ban on repeated infringements.

@GF I’m not the person you asked, but I have the same preferences stated.

And well, I don’t think that allowing a character to become that powerful is a good idea. I think a well-run game has to make XP spends make sense, regardless of the rate of XP gain.

So nah, I wouldn’t enjoy a game where everyone became so powerful that nothing challenged anymore. Every obstacle could be overcome easily.

But I don’t think the generational idea is the way I’d enjoy solving that.

Not that long ago I had a character in a plot where character death was a real possibility. On my commutes home I would sometimes think about how I would pose him getting killed.

Because it was a supernatural game, there were supernatural factors involved and I could bring in a ‘third party’ who would be deeply affected by the character’s death.

Basically, if you know Mage the Ascension, his avatar (weak, one dot) was going to panic about his premature death not giving it a chance to grow and prosper. So it was to try to revive him by showing him probable futures of his children and grandchildren as motivation to Get Up and Fight. However, the effect was going to be that it soothed the fear and panic he felt while dying.

One pose, the character’s story completed.

It was intense in my head (still is really, months later, though it never happened) and I would get choked up about it. But I also completely break down at the end of Link’s Awakening.

I want stories to move me, and I’m not ashamed of it when it happens.

@Wizz It’s like an online, multiplayer version of the old Space Trader PalmOS game, with actual role play involved.

@Jennkryst said in As a PLAYER, how many staff would be ideal in a game?:

I want more staff than players, so when the player nagging inevitably burns someone out, there are plenty of replacements available until the burn-out fully recuperates.

I now know I want staffers who are allowed to have player bits, so it’s not like pulling teeth to recruit new staffers when breaks happen.