James Ransone, actor in It, The Wire, and Generation Kill

In my local tabletop circle (which also includes one former LARP group), we sort of developed the “Are You Sure?” policy. Any time a PC would take an action that could feasibly result in bad stuff coming down the pipeline to them, the GM in question would say, “I must ask officially, Are You Sure?”

This was an official OOC signal in many games over the last 20 years that a PC was about to traipse into danger, and possibly wouldn’t come out of it, or at least not come out the way they went in. It’s honestly saved on a lot of upset and bleed over the years, and it’s something I’ll continue to use as I GM in the future.

It’s super frustrating when people do things that should only result in something negative happening to their characters only for them to throw an OOC fit and ask for a retcon or no consequences at all.

I’m all for consent, but in an RP environment, it has to be tempered with an understanding that sometimes a person’s character might take actions that have to result in consequences regardless of consent.

In my notes for my hypothetical game I run in the future, one of the game policies is going to reinforce that, but I don’t quite have a wording for it yet. For example, the character Benjamin willingly robs the local bank, and in the process gets spotted by multiple witnesses and a camera. The player of Benjamin, per that policy, has pre-consented to any logical consequences of that robbery (trouble with the law, potential ending of the characters story due to interacting with the law and going to jail or being killed while resisting arrest, being a fugitive, damage to their reputation for being a thief, etc.).

@Trashcan said in AI In Poses:

“I don’t want to RP with GenAI because it’s not very good” is not going to age well as a position.

I think the better position is “I don’t want to RP with GenAI because I’m here to RP with real people.”

I had heard about this (well, that there was going to be a Thundercats TTRPG) and desperately hoped it wasn’t going to use 5e.

@Wizz said in Celebrities We've Lost 2025:

People Mag willing to just jump on that conclusion within hours seems pretty irresponsible unless their sources are like…the son himself, so. still taking that with a small grain of salt. enormously tragic either way, those two were absolute legends and it makes me heartsick.

Well, he’s been arrested for the murder this morning.

One thing to consider, especially for myself is that there’s a noticeable difference in my posing when I’m focused and super into the RP that’s going on and when I’m RPing while I’m in an emotional low. When I’m not feeling mentally great, my poses tend to become repetitive and incredibly short and direct. It goes from a 3 paragraph pose of very descriptive language to “Dave hands Bob the Temporal Annihilator and says ‘Here you go.’”

It’s possible that others have the same sort of shift in their posing due to mental health, and could create a false positive for AI posing.

The most funny part of this to me is people keep using the en dash / em dash thing as an example, and I myself don’t know when to use either, so I just do whatever and sometimes it gets autocorrected.

@Cobalt said in MU Peeves Thread:

The overwhelming feeling that I am not welcome anywhere. (This is nothing anyone has done or said to me, this is my own brain being an asshole to me.)

This is why I am so slow to start RPing at any game I join and the primary reason I stop attending RL tabletop groups.

In my case, I think I’d prefer a very short pre-made list combined with a behavior filter. 99% of people get the filter, but there are a handful of people that would be on my pre-banned list, and if I discovered they were actively on my game, I would remove them. Even barring the potential for them to have learned from their mistakes, there are a few people in the hobby that I would immediately remove from my game just on past experiences.

@Cobalt So then is Saulot pretending to be other people? (Referring to the character list where Saulot claims to have been the same PC on TR as Warma.)

@Roz said in Empire Discussion Thread:

No, that’s not the behavior being described. It was using secret alts to give stuff to/generally benefit their main alt.

Yeah, but continuing to attempt that is just pestering Ada, right?

@Roz

Yikes, secret hidden alts to keep pestering people that don’t want to be pestered by the player anymore. Bad look for sure.

@Tez said in Tough Calls:

I used to be a very evidence-based staffer.

I think evidence is still worthwhile, as sometimes, people can pass the vibe check, but still end up doing some horrible stuff, and evidence will get past the “oh, they’re good people, they pass my vibe check”, and can also indicate that maybe a review of the vibe one is looking for might be needed.

@Lemon-Fox said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Cujo taking the time to talk to me rather than banning me speaks fairly well of him as a person.

@Ominous said in Prove Tez Wrong:

It’s also good advice for Blood on the Clocktower.

Tangentially, it strikes me that Blood on the Clocktower could easily be hosted using a MU codebase.

@Jennkryst

After 25 years of MUing, I’m of the opinion that people try to give others way too many chances.

I think the sweet spot for me as a staffer is 1. You get 1 screw up that I don’t ban you for, and I will let you know when you have spent your 1. When you screw up the second time, pack your bags.

Even then, there are exceptions. Particularly awful behavior will result in an instant ban with no discussion.

@Yam said in Empire Discussion Thread:

Man IDK guys is it really that hard to avoid bans? Are people just tripping into bans these days?

I feel like it’s less tripping into bans and more toxic players will be toxic players and staff have finally, at the end of 2025, reached the point where just throwing down the ban is the least headache and anxiety of any option.

@Lemon-Fox said in Missed Settings:

Exalted Battletech. When your mech is destroyed, you leap out with your sword.

I would only play Exalted Battletech if I could use Call the Blade to pull my Mech to me in the same fashion that the charm works for weapons. So I hold out my hand and my Mech just Kool-Aid Man crashes through a neighborhood to scoop me up and deposit me in the cockpit.