I think a lot of expectations seem reasonable on the surface–if games happened in a vacuum or were run by robots. They do not and are not.

I think everyone is happier in the long run if when they notice that they do not get a response in the amount of time before they start to feel resentful and this seems to be the rule rather than the exception either they need to accept that and play with what they have or it is time to move on.

Staying while mad and steeping in resentment poisons the experience even when it is your turn, and can also affect everyone you are around too. It doesn’t really matter why. If the Could/Should isn’t happening for you, it probably isn’t personal (unless thats your usual experience across different gamerunners and genres, in which case perhaps some introspection is needed). But it is good to make some realistic expectations shifts in how much mental energy and time you want to invest in a game where for whatever reason there’s a mismatch in what you get vs what you feel you’re giving.

And sometimes players need time off to recover from a previous bad experience elsewhere. Few things kill staff or storytelling morale (or player morale) than a player vomiting game trauma dumping all over them and having a huge chip on their shoulder about how other people have wronged them elsewhere and are unable to interact without mentioning it frequently.

@STD my experience as staffer and player is that a lot of people say this and mean it, but a lot of people say it and think they mean it but only in very specific ways and will get very upset or just not respond/claim to be railroaded because they didn’t think they voted say no if they ever wanted attention again.

Even having prefs (and I’ve seen that done very thoughtfully and well on a few places!) slides into tricky territory when staff initiates something that alters a character that that character didn’t chase (and let’s be honest, even some chasers still dont like the end result if it doesn’t meet unspoken or even unrealized at the time expectations.)

I am all for prefs and pick me flags though. I just think that unless there’s good personality and crowd control on a game, it’s very hit or miss if utilizing that is going to be actually helpful. I think in part because a lot of people think staff attention for a period will solve their engagement issues with other players, that it will open doors, but I’ve yet to see that happen for people that weren’t capable of doing that on their own. Which leads to more resentment on the temporary spotlighted pc.

It’s just complicated. I love knowing what people’s no go or yes please prefs are as long as theyre honest though!

I’ve seen the points for play/spotlight/equity thing tried and floated a lot over the years.

I think it’s easy to understand why that might be desired.

The problem is it never has the effect that the advocates/wishers want. Never.

Not because players or staff suck, but because participation and spotlight is rarely about numbers. Minutes of screentime. Number of mentions in staff posts. Length of title bestowed upon player/character. Number of scenes present. All of that can be a component for feeling engaged, satisfied, or like things are as accessible to you as you see certain other individuals getting–but it doesn’t solve the problem which is largely rooted in feelings and we are all imperfect human beings whose feelings and perceptions may or may not obey the laws of those numbers.

You can’t points calculate your way out of feeling like maybe other people are getting the kind of impact you want and don’t think you’re getting. Racking up and using points or other acquired resources honestly can lead to feeling even more disappointed in the result if it’s not perceived to be “as good as” what a similar group got. I don’t even want to think about the pressure and just real feeling of defeat/morale bust that places on staff.

I saw this play out again and again and again on Arx and other places, with a huge diverse set of people that I perceived to have similar levels of engagement/spotlight complaining about how they got nothing but the other person got everything (sometimes the same people complaining about each other verbatim), or some people being terribly upset about their writeup that at least from my perspective was even better than one I’d gotten, but they were complaining to me that my group got the favorable one. Again, not because ANY of these people were bad (staff or player) but perception and feelings of disappointment are difficult. And storytelling isn’t like knowing you have to earn ex amount of tickets playing skeeball to “win” a laffy taffy or glow in the dark kazoo–maybe you won’t like the spotlight you get, maybe you won’t like the storytelling you get for your plot, maybe both you and the person that you’re wishing you’d gotten their writeup/storytelling are thinking the same thing (and hopefully no one is telling the poor ST this always). I mean hell, I whined about it as much as anyone else too because…well, perception. And humanity.

I think it’s just the human part of our hobby.

So I actually think there’s no magic number to staff to player ratio. I wish staff felt free to not have to numberize things, to feel like they could close down apps or take breaks when they’re feeling overwhelmed and be reasonably certain players would take it with grace. I like it when staff feels free to gently (or firmly) show players that stress them out or drain them too much the door, even if those players haven’t done anything “wrong”, because they’re protecting the staff enjoyment and stress balance.

I think the problem is that people take stuff really personally. I’m not saying I’m a saint and I don’t because I do. Luckily for me I do tend to have great friends on game who are able to tell me that I might need to check my reaction (and I think they tend to tell me that because I’m for the most part good about listening to that, and returning the favor). But like–I don’t think you can build that into an OOC clout/spotlight numbers game.

I get the impulse for people who find it really hard to initiate RP, or find that for whatever reasons they’re passed up for invites in favor of those that to them seem less “deserving.” I really do. I just don’t think there’s an external system that will solve that.

As long as the ooc atmosphere is polite to cordial/friendly (prefer it closer to the friendly side), has some boundaries around public ooc/rl oversharing, and where staff helps people who are freaking out because they dont actually like the game leave, I am pretty genre flexible.

I like trying new things as far as theme/world/genre/ic feel!

One or very limited, based on what multiple staff can support in a way that isn’t stressful, along with an pc per player limit of 1 or 2.

Allowing one pc per sphere doesn’t work well most of the time, especially in an era where most folks don’t have the spare time that they did as young 20 somethings. It also tends to compound problems of burnout, fomo, ect even though in theory it should help.

I always appreciate it when staff don’t schedule all metaplot or staff plot scenes in the middle of the weekday my time, but I guess by now I’m used to having to alternate my availability/sometimes get up super early/stay up super late to be able to participate. But unless there’s STs from different timezones or work times there’s just a limit to what can be done, that’s not really anyone’s fault.

Flexibility doesn’t yield the results it should, a lot of the time, in my observation. Just getting people to respond promptly to WIG or other stuff like that to try to schedule things, and the amount of chronic no shows, I’m not sure if I would recommend to a staff that they put themselves out in a very stressful or inconvenient way to maybe get somebody to possibly show up at a off time. It’s different if the person is proactive in suggesting times and reliable though, so I guess it’s fine to give it a try–but I’ve seen an awful lot of staff and STs really try to do everything “right” and then get pretty bummed out when people don’t show up and are back to complaining about how there’s never anything available to them the whole time.

I do like it when staff use requests/jobs as a way to get involved/get info that can be used to RP vs. just via scenes. Some genres are easier than others when it comes to this, but getting to have an impact even on advantages/setup/cleanup from live scenes is pretty nice, especially when one can get RP outside of ST scenes.

It’s never been important to me to have One Big Story, as a player. I think for some particular runners/staff teams it is fun for them and helps them structure what they want to do, which I think is great and fully support. I enjoy playing in metaplotty things. But I would be just as happy playing various one off or short term stories too. The truth is I am too dumb to remember a kind of long term plot where I need a whatever that app was where you kept track of all these different tendrils of things, anymore. But I can be an enthusiastic participant in things that catch my notice, and I enjoy plots that aren’t metaplots. I’ve started to get better about organizing, but I can only sustain it for relatively simple/short term stuff. Luckily people (staff and not staff) dont seem to mind terribly, or at least, not enough to tell me to go away to my face.

As a player what’s most important to me is that staff do what makes them happy, and be willing to sometimes thump me upside the head if it’s clear I’m clueless and making it not fun for them. (If I’m pursuing a stupid red herring, I am TOTALLY okay with course correcting with someone is like hey mietze, you are a hoot but that’s getting way off track. PLEASE tell me that rather than feeling obligated and bored and distressed!) But I totally understand why staff don’t do that, because I’ve seen the epic tantrums that sometimes people have. BuT my CHaracTeR WOULd do tHIS!!!1111!! Ugh.

I know some people think of that as railroading, and I suppose I have met a very few STs who were extremely rigid and angry about people not getting things right, but usually there’s clues way in advance that I’m not going to be the best fit for that staff/ST so I can see myself out.

I just want staff to enjoy what they’re doing most of the time (it’s never fun ALL of the time when you’re dealing with people). Whatever they need to do that is fine with me.

I think staff should be able to play or not play as it pleases them. If they’re open about it, so the people who shit themselves if staff does/doesn’t play (and I’ve seen it go both ways) can make an informed decision.

Staff should also feel free to remove and boot any player who can’t shut up about that. I’m a big fan of staff getting noisy people who can’t accept the policies of the game but for whatever reason can’t leave TO leave so they don’t wreck the environment for others.

Twenty years ago, I often got pretty enraged when I saw staff member PCs (and I agree with Faraday that sorry guys, everyone’s going to know who they are even if you don’t put a tag on it, that’s the way things are) “hogging all the spotlight,” Now, honestly, I’ve gotten to the stage that I just don’t care. If there are things going on that I can participate in, then I will stay and participate until I don’t feel like it anymore. If nothing is available to me but lookyloo, usually I’ll leave sooner. Not with animosity, but just because it’s boring, and I don’t have control over it anymore. I have found that the last case seldom happens, honestly. I’m not in the proper geographic area for prime time for more places, but I can almost always find people to enjoy who at least enjoy me enough to RP with me.

I wish I was better at dual wielding (playing and STing). I could do it pretty well when I was younger, but honestly I just find it super hard to focus that way now for a variety of reasons. So if I ever do do my little glorified tabletop thing, I won’t be having my own “pc” because I’ll have my hands full running STed scenes which involve keeping track of multiple characters even if they aren’t as fleshed out as a PC, and that will max me out. I never assume I am unique in the hobby, so I think that’s why some people also don’t like to have PCs on games that they run (or if they do they are pure flavor side pieces with friends, for funsies).

I think that it’s a good idea for all alts on a game to be public, for avoidance purposes. I don’t think this should have to include all alts in the hobby ever. To some degree there’s some trust involved. I am shit for remembering people’s alts usually. But If I find out that there’s someone who has expressed negative things about me in the past, while I won’t avoid them on another game in the sense of flouncing off on public scenes or crying to friends about how they too should not play with that person (luckily my friends in the hobby would kick my ass if I behaved that shittily, unless the person was a creeper/abuser, but those are rare and usually my friends will spot them before I do), I also don’t seek them out. I also don’t lie if someone asks who I am. I just don’t like broadcasting because I do have two consistent stalkers still in the hobby that will OOCly seek to interact with me if I am publicly known on a game (but they’re both kind of weird and tend to get removed eventually). I wouldn’t be upset if I even interacted with them wittingly on a game (they don’t tend to disclose who they are). I just don’t want the OOC interaction.

@catzilla i understand. It’s just that when I see those mistakes I think wow they’re not very good at writing rp hooks before they have a chance to rp the character/maybe they don’t have a sense of them yet. So maybe I’m just willing to give them more benefit of the doubt than some. I’ve seen a lot of looks great on wiki pcs that were very difficult to RP with in practice because either they were rigid about their vision and unable to really RP with anyone or they were selfish in scenes or were only willing to sit back and let others come up with things for them to react to, ect.

People who suck at writing interesting rp hooks can be all those things too. But I just don’t really think rp hooks have much of an impact especially in the beginning stages. Esp as required by CG. I’ve even played on mostly all roster games where rp hooks were rather tepid or limited to profession/very basic and not very interesting stuff. So really you had to just kind of give people a chance. Maybe it’s that experience and figuring why the hell just not give someone a chance, they’re likely not going to be worse than a control freak/rping mostly with themselves sort of player, my views have softened over the years.

Sometimes I think its a fine line. When I invest in a merit that is appearance based i will reference it in play when I feel its appropriate and it is kind of fun when other people do too. I’m sure that may annoy people too but its valid I feel and I try to be careful about not using directives but more like “aesthetically pleasing to many standards” or specific features ect.

I dont know i would put that in an RP hook but mostly because I tend to feel that it seems like an unwitting inviitation for certain types of pests to target (not saying it is an actual invitation or it would be their fault but just all those years of experience and observation make me have a flexible bump of worry especially if its also combined with certain other factors).

But I’m also coming from the perspective of seeing RP hooks as a way to either build a background contact/previous off screen experience to have a reason for play or suggestions on what kind of scenes would be easy to spin up with that PC. And looks are tricky because positive or negative if thats supposed to be a draw for interaction then it fizzles if the other pc is used to seeing monsters/other things even more fantastical or isn’t attracted to in the sense of hmmm id like to try and know this person their other features.

I tend to always be willing to give people a chance for at least a scene or two. Some people just aren’t good at coming up with rp hooks but they’re fine in RP! Other people are actually great at rp hooks but then you feel like they are rping AT you and not even bothering to read what you wrote. Which to me personally is far far more annoying. So I’ve found it a not great indicator of qualify. And they’re outdated very very quickly esp for new pcs.

my school (out for the summer for the academic year program but with toddlers through 6th graders still in care for ‘summer camp’) just had to shut down and is now consolidating the programs to one campus with a higher staff visible presence and two weeks of police patrolling because a threat was called in. it is not considered high risk because a lot of schools have been hit with it and it did not come from a local source.

but still.

we did have a suspicious person show up lingering around the day before yesterday that I saw with my own eyes. He was escorted off property by our staff and that was later moved along further by police.

that is kind of what even early childhood educators have to deal with now.

@Pyrephox while i appreciate the spirit behind pretty much everyone who decides to get into animal rescue volunteering, there are some truly unhinged and weird people/orgs out there.

Like fuck me, i thought doing PTA leadership at the regional level was bad (having to referee arguments within the local PTA/deal with legal issues like embezzlement and threats, ect) but my eyes were opened that it can be a lot worse!

Some of the invasive questions and expectations while clearly coming from a place of trauma/past problems…I think I’d be more worried about people who tolerated that stuff than people who noped out!

I really like reading descs, but prefer it to be on a wiki too. Just because I got trained out of the habit of look <name> after being on a few places where someone looking at someone else was broadcast not just to those people but the ENTIRE ROOM.

As someone with cognitive deficits that pretty much require I’m going to have to reference back frequently that was extremely stressful. I feel ashamed sometimes of how many times I have to backreference things by relooking them up even between poses, and having it broadcast was…meh. And spammy and annoying to everyone else. So I love that many places now integrate both image and desc into their wiki, it’s a godsend for someone like me, as are people who note any unusual stuff in their page (yes my bit name is X but I only introduce myself as Y, here is my rank on places where rank/titles are important, ect)

I also really like it when people incorporate their desc or change of clothing in poses. I know that irritates a lot of people but for me it helps with visualization. I’ve got the opposite problem in that while I enjoy visual images it’s almost always more about the mood, and I actually tend to think of that with others too–I don’t visualize them exactly like their images on their pages either. I think that’s why the AI images don’t jar me terribly unless they’re unintentionally funny, because to me, PB/art/AI to my brain has always been a suggestion.

In the same way the written desc on the character object is a suggestion too. People can look so different with change of expression, and they’re dynamic, not static. This is why people incorporating aspects of their descs or whatever is really enjoyable to me in RP because it is really cool (to me) and helps create that mental picture for me when I’m RPing with someone.

I tend to get a little down when it seems like nobody is paying attention to that, but I know that’s a me thing.

@Jennkryst this is the typical pattern for this guy, he did it for years on MSB.

@bear_necessities maybe it’s just a matter of reading enough of it that you develop a sixth sense. I’m not there yet to be honest. The only time I’ve got pings has been over a bunch of room descriptions that seemed just really off compared to how that person RPed (lots of You feel X when you see in the room descs when they NEVER did that sort of thing in RP, or example. Or when I saw a bunch of things obviously generated at the same time that also appeared together, (like a bunch of room descs hitting the grid at once with a weird similarity that was hard to put a finger on that i probably wouldn’t have noticed just slowly discovering those rooms organically via play/looking for scene locations, ect.

@STD if you tend to have male PCs or they have names that are more gender neutral, you most likely won’t hear from jill

Holy shitballs, i have to say about almost a week in that the cgm is amazing and is already helping me a lot in trying to figure out how I can stay on top of things. I don’t want to get into too big of a detail because most people don’t want to hear it, but if you’re considering one either for medical reasons or I can certainly see why there’s going to be an otc one soon for people who want to use it for health reasons, I’m happy to talk about it with folks via PM or whatever. I’m really glad that my doctor was cooperative and that it’s frankly even more helpful than I thought it would be.

@RightMeow if i’m not sure what to do/where to go regardless of if i’m the asker or askee, often times i just admit that. it doesn’t happen often for me as i’m good at brainstorming, but sometimes i do ask people if there’s anything they would want in particular just because, well, if i don’t know them or they don’t have asps or prefs or anything set i mean i can fling a lot of ideas out there but having someone say no i don’t like that again and again is kind of a bummer too so it never hurts to ask.

but i think it’s also okay to say “this is a little awkward but i hadn’t gotten to that stage yet because i was fretting about asking, so let me think about that for a minute, is there anything that YOU don’t want other than the no-brainers?”

i think anyone that is so hung up on people asking them in exactly the right way the first time upon meeting that they will never scene with you ever again probably isn’t a loss for you. in fact, steering clear of folks like that might be the recipe for happiness on the game so you don’t have to play walk on eggshells. most people aren’t like that. maybe they’ll have a brief moment of annoyance, or laughter because accepting used up all their momentary energy so they need to think too, but they’ll get over it. if they cannot then it would have been only a matter of time before you got yourself disinvited from sceneing with their august person anyway.

I got approved for a cgm so I feel so cyberpunk. I’m excited though I think it may help figure out some patterns and timing so I don’t feel quite so crummy a lot of the time!

Resurrecting to share something I’ve been making pretty frequently because it’s really tasty and is a quick way to get my protein even on the fly (i double batch it) or to toss into a salad or whatever if i’m having to make a lunch for work last minute). I love all things smoky/burnt-ish, plus these things are nice and chewy too (also a lovely texture for me). I thought i’d share! the partner and kids tend to steal these too when they’re right out of the oven. Plus it’s easy and takes minutes to prep and just 20 minutes to bake.

Tofu Crumbles

About 400g Tofu (firm or extra firm, pressed so excess water is removed, I don’t bother pressing if it’s fresh/not packaged in water)
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 Tbsp oil of choice (i prefer avocado or sunflower for this one), or oil spray of choice.

Preheat oven to 400F

Combine all dry spices in small bowl and mix well.

Crumble the tofu into a large mixing bowl, crumb sizes should be chunky breadcrumb (stuffing?) sized but i like to have some bigger chunks in there too and the teeny ones get all nice and crunchy so it’s fine.

Put the spice mix in with the tofu and toss until everything is coated evenly. then pour in liquid smoke and toss again.

Spray a baking tray well with the oil spray or spread the oil in the pan. Put pan in the oven at temp for a couple of minutes until it starts to smoke a bit (around 5 minutes but if you’re using spray might wanna watch this closely).

Pull out tray and dump the crumbles on it, spread them evenly and return to oven for 20 minutes, stir about halfway through.

Once they’re done if you let them cool for about 5-10 minutes they get even crispier! I think they’re great over the next few days (store in fridge) but they don’t really last at my house more than one extra day.