she/they
KB is right. There is nothing to be gained. There is no understanding to reach. There is no communication to be had. The other night I was so profoundly disappointed in what has become of a good place that I was honestly pretty bummed out.
It is what it is. They are what they are. Let them be. And leave them there.
Hi, guys:
Any posts elsewhere will be moved to this thread.
This is not a thread for arguments or nasty debates. We will be closely monitoring and moderating this thread in a way that we usually do not.
This is a thread for grieving, sharing resources and help for people who are impacted by all of this (which is all of us, but some more than others).
I’m just glad Ghost is there to lead the way to a brighter, more positive future.
Let’s not be reductive genitalia-essentialists about gender no matter where we are in the forum.
I think it’s pretty obvious why HannahBanana has been banned, but just in case it’s not obvious, I don’t care where you are: ablelist language isn’t okay, gatekeeping sexuality isn’t okay, none of this is okay.
https://forum.aresmush.com/t/v1-0-0-released/923
I don’t know if you guys have heard about this new fangled MUSH server called Ares–
Ares has brought a lot of new life into the hobby. I’ve watched people who hadn’t even logged into a MU* in their life launch and run games. Congratulations to @Faraday, and THANK YOU!!
While users can create new threads, they cannot create new categories. I believe that’s what you mean when you say new boards, yeah? We made a conscious choice not to include a politics category when we created this forum and right now that is not changing.
Politics isn’t a team sport. It’s life or death for many of us.
It’s not that we don’t think it’s important, so we won’t make space for it; in many ways, it is TOO IMPORTANT. This is especially true given the hands-off moderation stance I’d rather see on this board. We just don’t have the time, bandwidth, expertise, capacity, etc. to be able to moderate those discussions.
I’m sorry.
@Dreampipe said in Bannings:
There are actually a fuckton of literal fascists in this hobby;
There are fascists in a lot of places, alas. Fascists in gaming is an interesting area people are working on, but the far right were early adopters of online spaces (including back in the BBS days). Their methods will only ever get a small percentage of the population, but if you have so many people you can access, you can get to a much greater proportion of that small number and…well.
As someone who is super into history, Norse mythology, Crusader Kings, punk rock, and RPGs, the amount of time I have to spend squinting at people with common interests and going “Okay, but are you a fucking Nazi?” is both alarming and exhausting.
Seconded. I’m a white dude and it’s sometimes really anxiety inducing to talk about those kinds of interests without feeling like, “guys I swear I just like the stories, I’m not a white supremacist”. Double whammy because I also like power metal.
At least a lot of them usually don’t take long to go mask-off. I remember people using SS designs in medieval games like Mordhau or Chivalry. No it’s not a pair of lightning bolts, I know what you are.
Look, I can’t lie. I would use a pair of lightning bolts because I think lightning bolts look cool.
AND THEN I WOULD BE FUCKING MORTIFIED WHEN SOMEONE TOLD ME.
Pour one out for everyone born in 1988 who is innocently making very poor choices about their usernames.
I am glad that we have largely left behind all-white games in the L&L space. I think the expectation that most people have is that you will see a diverse cast of characters. I appreciate that about Concordia, particularly where they have course-corrected with their pantheon. I think they are doing some other interesting things in that space, too.
There is maybe no perfect way to handle the issue of cultural diversity and real-world inspirations, but I still think that what they are doing is worth an upnod. You got your Targaryens, sure, and your red-heads, and your Romans–
But there is also a house that has clear East Asian influences and one with South Asian influences. I grabbed one of those from the roster because I am always dying to see something – anything, please, god – that isn’t just your standard Western French-British-Something take on fantasy. Then I ran into players who maybe had been expecting something more Western in the house, so I popped in a request to get more clarity. I wanted to know what staff’s intent actually was, and I like the answer I got.
Rather than directly copy and paste real-world cultures into the game, they’ve made a choice to draw on multiple places for inspiration to avoid generalizing, tokenizing, or fetishizing any real-world culture. In this case, yes, the house has elements of North India, but also Moorish Spain. I’m kind of curious if there’s a connecting thread of thought in that they were both extension of Islamic power at times, what with the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire in North India, but I haven’t sat them down for details – and I actually enjoy classical India better so DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO DRAW THAT LINE ON MY ACCOUNT.
Right now, at this moment, all I really care about is that they are doing something different, something interesting, and something coming from a place of curiosity and thoughtfulness. I wouldn’t say that they are a perfect game, and there’s choices I wouldn’t have made, but holy fuck please I hope more fantasy L&L games in the future draw from a wider well than the tiny Western European fantasy well.
If someone gave me a strike bc someone got sick then the game sucks and their use of strikes is an indictment of the game.
I’m not sure if it’s just a big game to small game thing, tbh. Three strike systems were all the range in the early 2000s no matter the size of the game. It might be an aging hobby thing overall: we just had less time and less fucks to give.
On Firan, documentation, existed in the form of lengthy on-game player files. On XMM, we had forum threads. One game large, in the hundreds; one game small-to-mid, never broke 100 in our life. I think there was a tendency in the early 2000s to treat staffing as very serious business which required structure and law.
On the subject of temp bans, I think people should use them more. Everyone needs a cooldown period. Go away.
@Yam said in Strike Systems:
Genuinely curious if the 3 strike system genuinely benefitted the health of any game.
no
@Ashkuri said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
No one thinks people should RP with players/characters they actively despise. But there is some gray area here in RPing with people who are not your top 8 favorites, RPing with people who are “just ok”, RPing with total strangers, and ST obligation (or lack thereof I suppose) toward attention/activity/fairness to the entire game population, crappy people and great people all.
I’m interested in people’s thoughts here.
I strongly, strongly, strongly believe that people should only tell stories for people that are fun. STRONGLY. BELIEVE.
Storytellers are a precious commodity. Their time and attention is the lifeblood of a game. If there is a storyteller who only wants to tell stories for a certain group of people, then that’s GREAT,and those people are HANDLED, and other people can get their attention somewhere else. And if no storytellers want to tell a story for someone? Maybe that someone tries telling stories. Maybe that someone agrees to swap with someone.
The above said, I do think Faraday is right here as well:
@Faraday said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
All that said, I do think it’s helpful to play outside your normal circles sometimes just for the overall health of the game. That benefits you as well, presuming you like playing there and want the game to continue.
Temperature checks of a scene, a game, a hobby – whatever it takes. It’s not a bad idea for staff to keep your thumb in to gauge whatever it is, however you measure.
There’s a difference to me between a scene, a story, and a game, and how much effort someone puts in is part of that as a player, a storyteller, and as staff.
@Trashcan said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
At the same time, a Mush is too big to be treated like a tabletop game and has more in common with a sports team or even a sports league. Past a certain size, you simply do not know enough people that are your favorite people to make up a team with, and necessarily there will be some you do not enjoy. While you are not obligated to pass them the ball every time they are open, if you never do, they will notice, your team will notice, and your team’s performance will likely suffer for it. If everyone on the team feels the same way, then that is a matter for the coach (staff) to resolve; that player should be removed from the team. The team will operate better without them, and there may be another team that that player coheres with more ably.
I think a team captain – storyteller – should be able to pick whoever they want on a team – plot. I think the coach – staff – should try to encourage as many players to be team captains as can fit on the field, to give everyone a chance on the field. And yeah, the coach is the one to let someone know if it isn’t the right field for them.
But players – including storytellers – should not have obligations to each other beyond the obligation of courtesy. You don’t have to play with people that you aren’t interested in playing with. There’s value in playing with people who are new to you, but making it an obligation makes it a chore makes it something that people don’t want to do. And if they don’t want to, they won’t, and if they do, they resent it. It’s a burden.
If it’s not obligation, though, it can be a tasty treat and maybe a fun new surprise. Most of us have met our favorites via one fun new surprise or another. I just don’t think making it an obligation for players or storytellers is the way to go.
Staff, tho, have some level of obligation – not as players, not to RP with people, but to create the conditions for play. I think that’s different.
@dvoraen This is more true than not. I go to Trader Joes and buy a shelf full of pickle chips for Roz, a bag full of mochi rice nuggets for Pto, and all the focaccia bread Yam could want.
Straight up some days we have a whole drawer in our fridge devoted to Sargento snack trays.
@bear_necessities You know what? You’re right. They shouldn’t have to. I’m just curious.
@MisterBoring I think it’s an interesting exercise but I’d want to talk to someone who does use it as such to understand how they use it and what the difference is for them and for others.
