@Juniper said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:

Oh, this shit absolutely happens everywhere. It happens in my game.

I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.

It kind of is - but it’s also a call for people to take a step back and think in general about what’s going on around them.

I have learned of two more sets of people on that first oWoD game who are, by more than one report, employing the same fucking tactics. And there are other games that I’m not on, and shit that I’m not seeing, and things that I don’t know. That call for people to stay safe and look after each other? That was heartfelt. By looking after each other, we reduce the harms of all sorts of things, but this stuff in particular.

Respect your own boundaries, and the boundaries of others. And above all, care.

What do you do when the present echoes back to nightmares of days long gone? What can you do, except ring the alarm bells and hope that someone can recognise a subtle sort of danger?

Hi, Brand MU Day. My handle is EvilGrayson. Many of you have encountered me over the years; I’ve rarely been shy about who I am and who I’ve been, and I’ve been on this board and its predecessors back to around 2000. I’ve seen any amount of shit go down in that time, and while I might not be much good at dealing with people in RL, I am a professional when it comes to spotting patterns. And yesterday I was able to put a name to a pattern that had been slowly revealing itself for months.

One of the people I’ve been - the one most relevant to this particular topic, at least - was Judge Dredd, Shifter staff and then Wizard on Denver: Dark Destiny by Night. Or was it Dark Destiny: Denver by Night. I don’t know, it’s a long time ago and it was a very silly name even back then.

Denver died a long time ago, in large part because of the actions of two specific people and those who enabled them - and because those of us who should have stopped it didn’t have anything specific to apply the hammer for.

VASpider and Seanan McGuire would lure people into friendship by offering great RP and an in to the in crowd, while making it very clear to the rest of their spheres that there was an in crowd and they weren’t in it (but if they were good enough, they could be!). But. There was always at least one target - someone who’d drawn their attention, and had to be removed at all costs. They’d spin up rumours IC and OOC, take things in the worst possible lights, and turn their followers on them as well. And then when one was gone, another person was declared anathema, and forced off the game through similar tactics. It was subtle and it was vicious and outside their cadre it wasn’t really noticeable until you were the target - and one of them was staff, which meant they had a much easier time of covering it up and excusing it. And if that target happened to be someone who had been part of the in crowd, it was even more vicious as all their friends turned on them for no apparent reason.

How does this bear on now? After staffing for the death of Arx burnt me out for months, I finally felt up to RP again. I created a new character on an oWoD game, a sidekick for an OOC friend I’d made on Arx - a ghoul, called Grayson. If you know me you know I play archetypes, and I was easing back into RP so who else would I play? So. Said ghoul encountered a werewolf, a great RPer and friendly sort of player who promptly decided this ghoul was the best thing since sliced Bane - but the werewolf wanted the ghoul all for himself. When the werewolf tried to get between Grayson and his domitor I started getting suspicious. When they tried to isolate me from my domitor’s player OOC as well, I was annoyed. When they tried to isolate my domitor’s player and character from his whole coterie, I was upset. When I started setting boundaries and disentangling my character from the werewolf, everything changed. And when the first time the werewolf’s new vampire alt met Grayson it was with a vicious and entirely unwarranted insult, only just stopping short of the r-word, I was angry. And through it all, the werewolf’s player’s partner was playing a senior vampire of a different faction, and making life harder as well. Overall I was left feeling that I didn’t particularly want to be anywhere that either of them were, and as soon as that became clear I dropped a note to staff that I was distinctly uncomfortable.

Soon after that, I and a few others were invited to a closed beta for a new game. Song of Blood was being started up by a player from that first oWoD game, and they’d invited a few core people to help them get the game up and running. Among those were the two problem players. The vampire player ended up in a position of power IC and with one of her allies in a staff position, and half the playerbase were her associates and reinforced her every whim - which just so happened to align with the werewolf player’s, who was in this case playing her ghoul. My OOC friend from the first oWoD game was made to feel entirely unwelcome and effectively driven off before chargen, and the game swiftly became the vampire player show. I ended up retiring my character because I’d seen the problem but had neither the energy nor the position to do anything about it, and on my way out I laid out for the head wizard the nature of a problem that they’d seen but not truly understood until it was too late. After that conversation, it seems that the head wizard vanished on that game and on the oWoD game, and Song of Blood - and possibly that staffer’s entire MU* career - appears to have ended. I hope that’s not the case, but it’s another loss to lay at their door.

While Song of Blood was active and my OOC friend was still in chargen, the problem players were discussing the oWoD game on the Public channel, including comments and complaints about staff there - and bragging about friendship and contacts, knowledge of alts and oversharing of private details, just to reinforce their connections and their power. My OOC friend and I - and the head wizard on Song of Blood - repeatedly told them that this wasn’t okay and they needed to stop, but they carried on regardless. We know all sorts of details about IC relationships on the oWoD game that we didn’t want to learn, all because they wanted to persuade the undecided to join their growing powerbase and be brought along as the vampire and whichever alt the werewolf’s player was on this week rose to power. This also served as notice to my OOC friend that their character was utterly powerless against them. That character has barely gone out in public since.

Having watched them kill a game in that fashion and gain more friends and more enablers in so doing, I joined a freshly-opened game and created a Garou there in a brand new sphere. A week or two ago a new pack joined - the only pack - with characters that were rewrites of the werewolf and vampire player’s oWoD wolves in it. I battened down the hatches and waited for the attacks to start, because my character was an obvious target and I expected they knew he was my character. Two nights ago, the attacks began, and over the course of the day after I realised what the whole pattern was and where I’d seen it before.

If you’ve never heard of VASpider and Seanan McGuire, they were notorious in days gone by. Their tactics involved being brilliant players and seeming trustworthy, friendly and outgoing, and obvious candidates for power IC and OOC. However, the only people permitted in their orbit were those who enabled them. They thought I was one of their enablers, although I wasn’t - much as the werewolf thought I was one of his enablers, although I wasn’t. VASpider invited me to their private MU*, and I still didn’t see what they and Seanan were really doing until Denver was in its last throes and it was too late to save it.

Why am I bringing up all this? Because it’s way too late for Denver and it’s too late for Song of Blood, but it’s not too late for the games these problem players are on now - and because the community needs to know this shit is going on again in new (and slightly less subtle) form. I lost my game to the very behaviours I’m seeing in these problem players; gathering a group of enablers to persuade everyone this is fine while they remove their target’s desire to log in or even play MU* again? That’s not normal and it’s not right and it needs to be stopped, pronto. The enablers are usually too caught up in a storm of charisma and lovebombing to notice; I wasn’t caught by it, but that’s because I saw this shit done by the best decades ago and didn’t quite fall for it then either.

I’ve spent more than 25 years playing on and staffing MU*s. I think of the game before myself - and I feel duty-bound to bring all this to the attention of the community. And perhaps the worst of it is that I don’t believe that their intent is to bring harm to the game, but in reality their intent doesn’t matter. Their actions - and the results of those actions - are absolutely detrimental to any game that allows them.

There is a pattern, and that pattern kills games, all without treading over any of the usual firm lines that lead to a banhammer. I don’t want to see more games die to the same old patterns. But I’m also being very nonspecific right now, because I don’t want to kick off one of the witch-hunts of old either, or get my arse banned from here in what would be a first time for a MU* forum ban in all my long existence in this hobby. If staff want to check the identity of someone they’re welcome to do so by DM, or if the admins here grant permission I’ll be able to share more then. In the meantime, stay safe and look after each other.

In sorrow, I am
EvilGrayson, once known as Judge Dredd of Denver

@TNP I’m so sorry to read this.

I mean I understand the complaint and where it’s coming from, but I’ve been the one left holding the bag for someone else’s RL emergency, and it sucks.

Whatever you do is wrong. Whatever you say is wrong. You aren’t enough and you can’t be enough, because what’s needed is the one whose bag this is and you’re just hanging onto it right now.

And it’s their RL, so you either turn into someone unreasonable, or you accept that RL comes first and this sucks.

And in the meantime, when someone puts a post up like this, it’s just pure demoralisation. There’s only one person who can answer these questions and - for whatever reason - they aren’t in the conversation right now.

Sure, the post may be accurate and it may be on point and it may be whatever, but it doesn’t help. And it won’t help. And it can’t help. All it can do is get people talking around in circles about their grievances, while also making the people who’ve been left with the bag feel like shit.

Congrats, I guess?

I’m very bad when it comes to paging people - even close RP friends - and asking for RP. I was raised to never be a bother, and paging people to say ‘Would you like RP’ feels like being a bother unless there’s a specific arrangement already in place or something that needs to be directly discussed - and, like STD, I really don’t want to be That Player Who Seems Kinda Obsessive.

I’m much more inclined to drop myself on the grid, hit an LRP flag, say on channel that I feel like RP if anyone’s interested, and so on. I try to be available, rather than seeking specifically.

Having seen people use descs etc. directly stolen from other people/games, I’m a little wary of giving someone carte blanche to use the shit I write anywhere and everywhere they please without even the ability to say ‘Really?’

And given the rise of AI data scraping, I’m even more wary of a clause allowing them to use my writing as training data. I don’t claim to be the next literary great, but the modern world is a total hellhole when it comes to automated copyright theft.

I can absolutely understand wanting to defend against scorched-earth idiocy, but giving the administrators the power to use anything I create on their game wherever and however they please feels like a bit much in this modern era.

Wandered onto Towers of Londinium earlier. Saw the terms, spotted an oddity.

3. You agree to grant to TowersMUX and the administrators thereof a
   non-exclusive, non-commercial license to any content you create via the
   mediums of TowersMUX or its game website; including, but not limited to,
   descriptions, poses, bulletin board posts, wiki pages, et cetera.

Does anyone know what the bloody hell this is in aid of? Because from over here it’s sounding kinda shady.

I too have a long history of administrative roles, and finally transitioned into a career a few years ago. This is partly because the career path I should have taken wasn’t as open then as it is now.

What I learned in administration is that you never, ever, underestimate your admins. They see everything. They know everything. And anyone who can organise other people - especially people with big egos and big tempers - to get things done is not someone you want to cross.

And yet the administrative staff are so often dismissed by people who only ever see the surface of things. It’s both stupid and weird.

@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:

everyone wants to take down The Man! everyone has different ideas for how to do it and wants the credit

Everyone wants to take down The Man, until they themselves are The Man, at which point everyone else has to be delighted with the idea and nothing can ever go wrong ever again…

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Evilgrayson said in MU Peeves Thread:

Yes, let’s tell the human-hating centuries-old elf who’s just slaughtered a whole town that they’re an idiot. That’s really going to go so well.

This is absolutely something that any number of my characters would do.

@Evilgrayson said in MU Peeves Thread:

the human-hating centuries-old elf had casually grown the mother of all trees through the mouthy one

And this is absolutely the extreme overreaction consequence I would be looking for, please and thank you.

If only more people thought like that.

I’m with you. If my character does something that stupid, they should get consequences! But ye gods, the wailing if consequences actually happen.

Yes, let’s tell the human-hating centuries-old elf who’s just slaughtered a whole town that they’re an idiot. That’s really going to go so well.

And yet if the human-hating centuries-old elf had casually grown the mother of all trees through the mouthy one, you’d have been able to hear the OOC screaming from my side of the Pond.

@dvoraen Ray - who got that revelation in the Murder of Crows while discussing Lowers secrets and specifically the things that had happened to people who said the wrong thing in the Murder of Crows - hid in his secret subterranean lair for a week.

@Rhamnious Looks like the Accords from here. Red Wardens, Prismatic Order, Triarchy, Smiling Shadows, and True Lyceum. Two ‘good’ orgs, two ‘bad’ orgs, and one ‘neutral’.

@SpaceKhomeini said in MU Peeves Thread:

I’ve found that being polite and direct (at least in my time working at HCL and Microsoft) at the first given opportunity, i.e. “how can I help you? I’m engaged in something right now but have a few minutes” tends to be an effective shortcut.

That approach turns the whole thing on its head, which is why it’s so effective. You have to be polite at all times - but if the other party only has a few minutes, it becomes more polite to get to the point so they can go do the needful.

@dvoraen said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

@Evilgrayson I seriously considered trying to do the Paladin bit for Bhandn at one point (doing it on his own, to specific god(s)), but I could never quite justify it to myself, and I second-guessed the idea constantly as to whether it was even thematic if not heretical.

But I did want to do something involving Vellichor, but the reasons why now escape me.

Was it heretical? Absolutely. But Ray didn’t care, and Death wasn’t like most of the other gods.

@MisterBoring said in Arx Stats for Nerds:

I always assume that whatever the visible staff count is, there’s an invisible staffer who just gets online to help squash bugs and update code. They may have a PC or two, but they never mention their being on staff, because the part of staffing they do doesn’t really require player interaction.

Good for most games, but Arx’s coder was Tehom. So already in the count.

Ray started from nothing, just a criminal henchman with a cliche’d backstory.

He found out over time that he was a quarter Nox’alfar. He found out that his father had been a holder of part of the Will of Baalphrigor who’d sacrificed thousands to the Abyss in a war, and who’d killed Ray’s mother.

He found a woman who could cope with him and got married, and a man who could cope with them both but couldn’t get married but was a not-quite-husband. He found a goddess who could cope with him and swore to Her service. He rose to be a Second of his crime family and one of the top-ranking members of the criminal underworld. He made friends and he made enemies, and he was the protege of the Queen of the Compact, while his wife was a successful businesswoman and a ‘successful businesswoman’ and a protege of a Voice of the Crown and his not-quite-husband was a Knight-Lieutenant of the King’s Own.

He ended up dying to save a bunch of souls in a shardhaven, and his goddess and his patron brought him back to life. He became an Aspect - and then went and performed the Paladin rite on his own and for one goddess only, and became the Paladin of Death, because that was a much safer title to use. The Wheelspinner came to him, and in the last battle he did what he could.

House Mazetti tried to ennoble him, often. House Velenosa made the offer as well. He’s accepted on behalf of Tanith and his child(ren), and House Calvaria will rise.

He started with nothing, and he ended up with so much, and I’d like to thank Herja for a truly stunning storyline and Tanith and Austen’s players for some absolutely amazing times - and the rest of Ray’s friends for putting up with the irritating murderous git and letting him be around regardless.

It’s been a whale of a time.

@Pavel Which is nice if you already know that, but I’m not a mind reader and that’s very much not how I was raised.

Cultures vary. Even in the same country, cultures vary, and my culture and the culture of most people here are very different in some surprising ways. Just opening up with what I’m after would be seven shades of rude and utterly against all the rules of human interaction I’ve spent decades learning to follow by rote because buggered if I can actually understand any of them.

I generally start a conversation with a wave, which is both a polite notice that I’d like to talk to you and a way for me to find out if I’m talking to a void before I start.

I live in a timezone that means people quite often aren’t there even if their character is. Often, by the time someone AFK comes back, I’m asleep. Better to just send a quick wave as a politer sort of ping.

@Roz I used to live near there. It’s absolutely wonderful, I wish I could go back.