Mudsex Hate Cycle Thread

[RogueGunslinger]

I don't think anyone disagrees with staff's decision to not let a baby-stealing plot happen because of a players personal choice not to want to.

[Armaddict]

I don't think anyone disagrees with staff's decision to not let a baby-stealing plot happen because of a players personal choice not to want to.

Er.  Did I miss something?  I just read up on like the last three pages, and this seemed to come about because someone talked about staff not wanting to let them kidnap virtual babies.

[TheWanderer]

Wouldn't want to rustle somebody's jimmies, amirite? Highlord have mercy.

[BadSkeelz]

The biggest drawback to removing baby objects from the game is that you can no longer load them into crossbows.

[Armaddict]

Wouldn't want to rustle somebody's jimmies, amirite? Highlord have mercy.

You sir, are clearly a reductionist.  Or selective reader.

[RogueGunslinger]

I don't think anyone disagrees with staff's decision to not let a baby-stealing plot happen because of a players personal choice not to want to.

Er.  Did I miss something?  I just read up on like the last three pages, and this seemed to come about because someone talked about staff not wanting to let them kidnap virtual babies.

One person said something about a person who could react badly to stuff like that probably shouldn't play Arm. But that doesn't really have much to do with agreeing or disagreeing with staff's decision to not let a plot happen because of respect out of someones real life experiences. They're not mutually exclusive.

[BadSkeelz]

People's virtual children are facilities of their own personal roleplay, not a target for vengeance plots or creation of vengeance plots (what?).

I cannot agree with this statement. VNPC family members are totally fair game for any sort of plot. They're just trickier to interact with on an OOC level because they "belong" to the player who created them and I for one don't want to power-emote with them. Going up to someone and saying "Hey I killed your Virtual dad while you were offline" is power-emoting. Targeting family members to get at a target is a time-honored tradition in both Zalanthas and real life and it's silly to declare them off-limits.

The only reason I didn't get to kill someone's kids during a particular plot was because the PCs on the otherside had wisely evacuated by the time we got there. And I've come to discover that other (virtual) children had been a big bargaining chip on the table. Like most things, whether a kid-killing plot is good or shit comes down to the maturity of the players and their ability to execute in a mutually entertaining manner (as best as possible, anyway).

[TheWanderer]

Wouldn't want to rustle somebody's jimmies, amirite? Highlord have mercy.

You sir, are clearly a reductionist.  Or selective reader.

S'more like a comment on your last post where you basically state VNPCs should be disregarded 'cause they're personal.

Edit: pretty much what Badskeelz said.

[Armaddict]

Ehhhh...if we're going to get into wars over whose emotes and roleplay not-in-the-presence-of-the-other-party get precedence, we should play MOOs.

Otherwise there's going to be an entire tangle of 'But I specifically roleplayed out this, they couldn't have taken the baby that way.'

'Well I didn't see that and we've already continued roleplay as if it happened, do we retcon this all now?  This is bullshit.'

Again.  Just...leave virtual stuff...to its owners.  It, again, has little to no bearing on what is actually happening in the game.  You can cause them emotional strife through -actual- PC targets and -actual- interaction, rather than quibbles about what happens when people are logged off or what roleplay was already in place.  And again, if you're wanting to just roleplay the randomness of the existence of the thing happening...there are plenty of coded entities for you to make that behavior on.

Every 'virtual family member' encounter requires so much oversight to make sure it's going properly it's ridiculous.  It's a bad, bad, terrible way to try and 'win' when there are so many alternatives that the game actually -does- incentivize and take into account.

[Armaddict]

Wouldn't want to rustle somebody's jimmies, amirite? Highlord have mercy.

You sir, are clearly a reductionist.  Or selective reader.

S'more like a comment on your last post where you basically state VNPCs should be disregarded 'cause they're personal.

S'more like I said they shouldn't be the center of plots because they 'belong' to someone and nothing good comes out of making it the center of something.

[Fujikoma]

say (with a wave of his hand) These are not the plots you're looking for.

[BadSkeelz]

Something being difficult to do doesn't mean it should be forbidden. Playing with others' virtual family members is an area that warrants stepping lightly to avoid getting entangled in such drama as you describe, Armaddict, but there are ways to make it work.

My personal favorite anecdote is someone who had a virtual kid, which they represented in their apartment by a crib  arranged as "a wet-nurse tends to a crib, holding a fat-faced baby." That's two virtual NPCs right there- the nurse and the baby.

They returned one day to find someone had re-arranged the crib to display "a dead nurse lies next to an empty crib." I don't know how the murderer and kidnapper RPed out killing the nurse and stealing the baby, but that they did is totally fair play in my book.

We don't draw a line at stealing someone's boots or mount ticket because the items "belong to them" and to take them would be to diminish their enjoyment. Virtual family members are no different - the player has brought them into the game and made them a part of the collective story of Armageddon and now they must deal with the consequences, positive and negative. Is interacting with them difficult? Yes. Is it impossible to do in a mutually-satisfying manner? No.

If you ever feel the need to harm a PC's virtual family members, I would strongly suggest taking it up with Staff first. Explain the situation, explain what you know of how these virtual family member behave (And what PC they belong to!) and outline your plan of attack. Try and work with Staff who can act as a mediator between PC parties so that there's little OOC confusion over who's done what to whom and when.

[TheWanderer]

S'more like I said they shouldn't be the center of plots because they 'belong' to someone and nothing good comes out of making it the center of something.

not exactly what you said, but hokay.

[BadSkeelz]

How this thread is going,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLZo2v28uGY

[Fujikoma]

I've wanted to play an eccintric noble for some time who picks a few semi-random commoner vNPC children to raise in the arts of refinement, hopefully to one day serve the house, it being such a privilege and all, but that's really a thin veil of what it at first appears, hostages, to ensure the characters do my bidding. Oh? Sorry to hear of your recent fumbling of that acquisition, I'd think it most dreadful if Timmy suffered an accident in the kitchen. Oh, of course, I know you won't mess up this time, you're far too smart for that.

Of course, he'd likely just bump the parents off if they messed up too much, no sense in wasting all that time and effort when a few of them are bound to make it into the Atrium squeeze the other potential aides dry of juicy gossip.

[TheWanderer]

If you ever feel the need to harm a PC's virtual family members, I would strongly suggest taking it up with Staff first. Explain the situation, explain what you know of how these virtual family member behave (And what PC they belong to!) and outline your plan of attack. Try and work with Staff who can act as a mediator between PC parties so that there's little OOC confusion over who's done what to whom and when.

I assumed everybody would naturally reach out to staff when attempting to interact with the virtual world, not just blatantly power your way through a scene of stealing a child. It was when that one guy said staff wasn't up for a baby-stealing heist 'cause the staff member got flak from a player that I got disheartened.

How many stories have started with some nefarious villain stealing away the dashing dude's righteous baby? I can understand aversions to rape and graphic torture, but this (the baby-stealing and assault of one's family, not torture and rape) has always struck me as a mainstay of the storytelling universe. Characters should always take the virtual world into account when acting, and I feel like that should include the welfare of their family.

[BadSkeelz]

I assumed everybody would naturally reach out to staff when attempting to interact with the virtual world, not just blatantly power your way through a scene of stealing a child. It was when that one guy said staff wasn't up for a baby-stealing heist 'cause the staff member got flak from a player that I got disheartened.

If something like that actually happened (staff squashed a plot because the PC family member objected to their vNPC relatives being targeted) I hope they would communicate that to the antagonist PC. I would want to know so I could either proceed to A) immediately escalate to trying to kill the target PC or B) begin disengaging from the plot entirely. In both cases it's because I wouldn't really feel comfortable continuing to RP with a player who is that unreasonable.

It could be that that player has valid reasons for not wanting to see that RPed out. I'd like to know that they at least exist, because I want to respect others' sensibilities and tailor my RP for the future accordingly. But I think in this case, where a PC's created a virtual family and brought them into the game and would find harm to them THIS upsetting, it would be better for that PC to not to have done that at all. When you bring a virtual object in to the game and then declare it off-limits to everyone else, you are the one power-emoting. You're making it unfair for other players.

[Is Friday]

That's a slippery slope and a lot of hassle to monitor for admins.

[BadSkeelz]

That's a slippery slope and a lot of hassle to monitor for admins.

What are you referring to, exactly?

[Inks]

I evacuated that virtual baby, Skeelz. the older vnpc children could look after themselves.

Dunno if you would want my pc looking after your kids but the mother had asked me to in the event of her getting ded.

[BadSkeelz]

Killing that baby would have totally made it worthwhile staying up till 3am on a work night.

[CodeMaster]

I don't buy this argument that virtual stuff should be treated as someone's else safe, special property.  By having a virtual X, you're changing who your character is, and imposing IC consequences and a specific reputation hit on any would-be attacker.

Like, just suppose that you play out that you have a [virtual] crippled husband who needs your help to even eat.  In an act of desperation, you do something bad and the penalty is death.  Now I'm the executioner sent to kill you.  This sounds like a fun plot, but my point is that killing your character is - ICly - now a much weightier task for me ... because I'm dooming someone to starvation.

Same goes with virtual babies.  If I want to kill you for unrelated reasons, I'm a baby killer.

It's more convenient to have the owner of the virtual stuff "own" it in some sense, but it should be everyone's to play with.

[Fujikoma]

The few PCs I've had who had children, adopted or birthed, have always responded to the world around them as if it were a threat to their well-being, and acted accordingly. Threaten the PC, ha, yeah, heard plenty of that. Make a vague threat against the children, however, and expect a not so nonchalant response. They tend to be the same way with mates. I doubt I'd just let a PC snatch my PC's child from my hands, unless it was well-emoted and there was some plot buildup to it, but I can assure you that, if I did, I'd be hounding the offending PC until I was convinced the vNPC was safe.

[Fujikoma]

How about this, for all you aspiring baby-killer people... ok, I get it. What you need is perspective. Grow your own little vNPC maggot in the conventional way, then, when you have possession of it, kick off a plot where a vNPC steals your baby, try it a few times under different circumstances, and discuss it with your mate, make it a plotline and see if, really, you want to toss that random baby into a fire on another character.

The alternative is having kids IRL. If I have any, I haven't met them. I was good for only a few things, my looks, my mind, and, well, several other abilities and assets. Am I mad about that? No. Dissappointed, well, kind of, but if the mother decided to snag my genes and run, she was carrying most of the risk, I have little say in the matter of what she wants to do... it's been hinted to me that, well, these are probably yours, but never confirmed entirely. Still, if someone threatened them, I know I'd have a reaction, it wouldn't be by conditioning, because it's obvious I've completely decimated my sense of morality many times over the years, and little of that's left. I think it's natural to have a very strong reaction to a threat against one's offspring, quite a bit stronger than a personal threat. I mean, let's be totally honest, WHY do you want to roast the baby on a spit? Likely because killing your enemies isn't enough of an insult. But, if they're already dead, what's the point? May as well make some coin selling the younglings to Borsail, which is a win-win-win scenario. Slaves are commonly known to live better than commoners in Zalanthas, and to have opportunity for growth, advancement, learning, depending on their attributes, so the child wins. You win because you get fucking paid. Even the dead parents win because some piece of them lives on buried in a virtual environment that'll likely never be explored.

Or you can be Amos the baby-eater. Hope that was tasty as fuck. I just fail to see the logic here.

[Fujikoma]

I mean, I understand that Machiavelli advocates wiping the whole line, so that they might never seek revenge, but, number one, Machiavelli lived during the renaissance, which was a time during which the human brain showed recorded growth. Number two, he wasn't always right, he was just one of the smartest individuals that happened to exist at that time. Some of his words are certainly applicable today, but I'd be more likely to chalk this sort of thing up to superstition and the concept of birth-rights, which, most Zalanthans wouldn't have rights to shit, so I don't see how the logical half of the argument even makes sense, unless you're destroying a noble or merchant house, in which case, yes, roast the babies.