As mentioned here: I have.a number of cousins Dave.

https://www.peacetigers.com/

@MisterBoring A lot of D&D tt gamers agree, or maybe 'cause I’m straight up that at least part (though not all) of the reason I have that collection is that he’s family. His son and I do mean it, though. Hah, I should just run those old modules…

Anyway, these’ll be fun,

@Deviant JK Rowling has claimed that she came up with the whole ‘wizard school’ idea independently of Yolen (in 1991), Pratchett (1983), Murphy (1974) and LeGuin (1968). LeGuin said that her own Roke Island wizard’s school was inspired by T.H. White having mentioned the folkloric wizard school Domdaniel in The Sword In the Stone (1938). Domdaniel is known to English speakers from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

But Rowling says it’s coincidence, and the other authors have, wisely, not bothered to argue.

@Pavel said:

You’re only allowed to imply the Rowling racism.

I suppose I could have gone for Strangely Green. It was from Blackadder Goes Forth, and a joke about a certain flavour of British upper-class naming – it’s actually spelled Cholmondeley-Marjoribanks in the script. (That would be pronounced “Chumley Marchbanks”). It goes along with a similar gag about nicknames, Lieutenant George’s other old school chums are called Drippy and Bumfluff.

It was just deemed too silly. For a world full of absurd names and lazy puns.

This was back in the day when Harry Potter was sacrosanct and remarking that it’s “stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited” caused HP fans to accuse Ursula K. LeGuin, of all people, of being jealous of Rowling’s ‘talent’. An ordinary geek like myself going around admitting that they noticed the racism, homophobia, slavery, smart-girls-are-annoying tropes, child abuse, weird fact that all wizards are tories, and general I read this before but it was called The Books of Magic and it didn’t suck vibe could expect great outrage, like way more than one gets for suggesting that GMs have to talk to players.

@Muscle-Car

I am guessing that it’ll plug into D&D 5ed and Pathfinder but is being/was playtested with The Necromancer’s Game.

It’s a Kickstarter

The man, the myth, the legend, author of numerous modules, the old D&D expert box set, AD&D 2nd edition, the Planescape setting, a couple of Forgotten Realms and a Spelljammer novel, he is one of my cousins Dave.

He’s never done a kickstarter before.

No, we’re not close, I haven’t seen him since his mom died about seven years ago.

@Floof I was not permitted to name a Harry Potter character “Strangely Brown.”

Adrian Brody is sexy Tim Blake Nelson.

Dot-Marie Jones is evil Jamie Lee Curtis.

Mads Mikkelsen is a sort of dire David Bowie. Like a dire wolf dire.

Liam Neeson is Sean Bean for incels.

See what I’m getting at? It’s a game. Can you think of some?

RJ Mitte

@somasatori said:

Should one play any games at all?

Only if you do not actually expect to play.

Any expectation that a game be a game is overbearing presumption. And a personal attack.

@Ominous Yep. Evidently their take-out was inferior.

@Roz Years ago I was befuddled that conservatives kept calling the Bureau of Land Management a terrorist organisation. It’s some sort of cognitive flaw.

The absolute best was that in the late '90’s neonazi skinheads started getting D.O.C. tattoos like in ‘American History X’ and I think, no, not ‘Department of Corrections’, no, I think DOC stands for ‘Day Old Chick.’

The excessive use of initialisms.

I read a whinge about take-out from BWW. I thought, “A big weird woman brought you food and you complain?”

@Jumpscare said:

Some people cling to my character’s words in a way that feels like they’re hoping to get in on a plot, and others suddenly disregard my character.

If you make it known (in +finger or whatever) that it’s your PC, the disregard side will probably reduce. Discovering that two personas you’ve been dealing with are one person can be off-putting and people who have that reaction are likely to withdraw some. Some people may feel that secret staff PCs serve as undercover wrongfun police who are scrutinising them rather than playing with them, and will avoid.

The cling-ons may drop off if events on the game are transparent enough that people can tell that IC connection to a staff PC isn’t a doorway to plot access. At least, it was my experience that my main PC didn’t attract that sort of thing, while people did run out to meet certain NPCs.

@Faraday said:

there’s nothing inherently wrong with running plots for yourself/your friends

I think its more inherently right. That’s what’s really wanted, isn’t it? The ideal MU experience you have a friendly RP group of gaming-friends and work plots together with GMs who are also gaming-friends.

The balancing act is the but also making it so that random gamers who find your game on MUDstats or Ares Central etc have a path to getting in on it.

@Roadspike said:

I’ve been accused of spotlighting my own characters and she’s been accused of running scenes just for my characters

I’ve no idea what the circumstances were for that, but I want to point out:

It’s not wrong or bad to do either of those things.

It just shouldn’t be a big percentage of all the spotlighting and scene-running that you do, you know?

I remember games that did regular ‘staff appreciation’ events where staff PCs (including those who saw a lot of action without that boost) were purposefully spotlighted . Players were down with it.

@Faraday said:

On a good game with a decent staff, you can trust staffers to remain fair even for their own characters

Yes. And if alts are all marked, so everybody knows that the staff PC is a staff PC, and the staffer is not a raging ego who will explode at being called imperfect, then – while I was typing @roadspike hit it – that staffer/player will hear about it if they’ve overstepped.

@L.-B.-Heuschkel said:

Staff that is essentially faceless authority figures invite abuse and fuckery from players who don’t identify with them as fellow hobby nerds.

This, and more.

Staff who really want to be authority figures are, hm. Typically not great. If they value protecting their authority more than they value fairness and widespread fun, they’re liable to be a nightmare.

You cannot separate the authority from the work, but the authority should not be the reward for the work nor the reason you do it.

In workplace type situations that get studied by sociologists and the like, people who put much psychic stock into being an authority figure and protecting that status are at a much greater risk of burn-out as well as making everyone around them miserable.

Because I was raised by goats I am an anarcho-syndicalist, but even putting that aside I’d still actively make an effort to be an OOC-friendly chat-channel user as a staffer. Players should feel that I have a personality, and that I am accessible, and that I am open to making new friends, even them.

@Third-Eye There’s a secondary issue in there – PCs that are just called NPCs 'cause they’re staff PCs and staff aren’t allowed PCs in their own section is a weird thing that happens. I’m not sure it matters much except for giving bad vibes, though.

@Kestrel said:

It’s very easy for game admins to grow out of touch with what the actual day-to-day experience of the game is like. This especially matters on crunchy games. You need to have the experience of someone stomping you into the dirt in the least fun way possible, in order to appreciate just how unfun it is for everyone else (and realise it needs fixing).

@Muscle-Car said:

As long as staff characters are marked as such, absolutely they deserve to play!

I strongly believe that every alt, staff’s PC or not, must be identified – RP as many characters as you want, but don’t pretend to be more than one player, whoever you are.

This rule put an end to ninety-some-percent of troublesome crap I had to deal with and reduced player anxiety by some unmeasurable but noticeable amount.

But it does mean that some players are going to treat staff PCs differently. But if you don’t mark alts, many players are going to figure it out anyway, and you’re bound to tell some. So in that case you’ve created an in-group with a seeming advantage (in front of people who’ve probably seen it abused to advantage in the past) and for what?

Staff should play PCs if they want and what they want, and it is helpful for knowing what’s happening on the game and what it’s like to use the systems, etc, but don’t expect it, or the words of your play-group, to be a great example of what it’s like for somebody who found your game on MUDstats or the like.