Originally Posted on Mackie's Facebook account. Reprinted here for folks without access:
------------------------------
Hey guys, I drafted this to post on a message board and then decided it wasn't worth, so I'm just putting it here for people who are online to read. Feel free to post your questions in the comments, and I'll (or someone else) will try to answer them:
Well, most of the STs left in a great exodus this evening after some chaos. As one of the STs I feel I should explain things just so players understand. I'm biased, I fully admit it, but here's what I can tell you:
Recently, one of the STs, Audrey, was running a scene when an argument broke out about White Wolf's stabilization rolls, which are hard to understand--check them out in their various incarnations over, like, every core book. The ST made a ruling and was trying to move on, but one of the characters, played by JaimeH the head admin, decided to contest the ruling. Also no big deal. It happens.
The Head ST of the venue, SeanD, was called in to mediate. He chose to side with Audrey and backed up her decision -- which was to actually go along with Jaime. This caused a big scandal to go on and arguing to last for more than an hour, at which point no one wanted to be in the scene or run it. Audrey noted to Jaime that she felt she'd pulled rank there and that she really needed to cut it out because it was fun for no one involved, albeit worded strongly.
The next day, Audrey was informed she was going to have to be in an inquisition with JohnC, JaimeH's fellow administrator, who had also been in the scene with JaimeH and Audrey -- though it was noted after looking at the logs that he, for once, didn't do what I'm about to mention him doing in several scenarios --and who has in the past blindly supported any argument Jaime makes until someone points out they're both wrong and making several bullet-pointed responses as to why, and who has also been Jaime's best friend for several years. When Audrey asked for Sean to be in the scene, she was told no, because he "wouldn't be impartial."
Cue a conversation between John and Sean. Sean asked how come he couldn't be a part of the inquisition, John said he was partial and biased. Sean noted that John was also partial and biased. John said Sean "would just have to trust him." Sean said he'd really prefer if one of the other STs (none of us had heard this information yet) could stand in as a judge, since they'd be more impartial. John said we were all too good of a friends for him or Jaime to "just trust us." When Sean called bullshit, and noted that MichaelB was in fact a lawyer who could be impartial to the scenario and had no investment in either side and he'd prefer having him on board as a less partial judge, John fired him. Meaning Sean, not Michael.
Sean posted the logs to the rest of the STs. Note, most of us STs have just put up with this sort of thing for years. One by one, in a show of solidarity due to having had to put up with similar stuff in one form or the other, we sent in our resignations. Then as those who were a bit later to the game got around to it, they found all their accounts (player and ST) banned. And soon regular players with no association to any STs other than having them on other messengers for questions were finding that their accounts were already banned.
Now one of the players has informed me that the stuff is back up but with a cleaning notice to it, noting that it will be up this evening.
That's all. I wanted to let everyone know what was happening.
Now, for some straight up facts:
No, none of the STs read logs if they could help it as far as I'm aware. I know I at least only did when forced to because of a player (or, more commonly, admin) complaint, wherein I would only look at the logs from the day and time of the complaint. JaimeH reads the logs constantly, and will contact the STs and whine if she hears other players talking poorly about her characters, claiming "this is a lie" or "this is gossip." If an ST tries to protect the other player noting that gossip happens in real life, she'll start crying about how it's just no fun for her anymore and how she might as well just close down the site because if she's not having fun then it's just work. She pulls this card often, as well as how she has to be the boss even though running the site was such a detriment to her health, etcetera.
JohnC once publicly cussed out Jaime and called her something along the lines of a, I'm going to go ahead and asterisk it, "****ing ****", so fill that in as you will. He posted his resignation publicly. The next day with a very insincere apology -- as noted by players and STs alike -- he was reinstated full honors, just so he could do nothing but XP once a week and get fullXP on it.
As any player in their venue can attest except for Jaime's husband and Jaime's best friends from her town, it takes them up to 4+ months to reply to anything on your thread. If you're Jaime's husband or Jaime's best friends from her town, it will take two days. And if they play in your venue as an ST -- aka Jaime, John, or any of their particularly close friends -- and you don't respond to their thread post within 24 hours, you will get someone on your behind asking "Why isn't my XP done yet?"
John and Jaime both want extremely special characters. No big deal -- who doesn't want their character to be special in some way? The problem with this is that they often want their character to be special, and if it doesn't work out 100% the way they want it, they will terrorize the ST to try and get them to "change it back" and "retcon the past few months" to get their character back the way they were. Examples of this include first changing into a Changing Breed, finding out that they can no longer play house due to rules already in place before the first change, and then asking to retcon the First Change...two months after it had happened...as a "joke played by Luna".
Arguing that they don't like the particular development of a venue "because it goes against what was initially set up" when what was initially set up was by a guy who then promptly cheated the system to give himself a bunch of otherwise banned things and got fired a few months into his job for doing so, wherein I (the ST writing this) then took over and ran the venue for one and a half years and had been developing it in the direction it was going the entire time -- but it was against what the initial guy had decided upon, so it was wrong, and I had to either "reset to venue" or "just do it their way." I and my fellow STs decided to reset the venue.
Some STs who were not intending on resignation arrived at the site to find themselves banned by association by both Jaime and John...and so promptly tendered their resignations via email, decrying the act of banning them before they even knew what happened as the final straw to the ST abuse.
I hope this post was not too out of line, and, if necessary, I can go through what remaining logs I do have (I admit to mass-deleting the logs I'd had sent to me every week in a fit of extreme joy after I sent in my resignation, but I have friends who have theirs and I've got some stuff in my Trillian folders). I do not have anything concerning the JohnC item, as that was all on the last forums a few months ago and was deleted and/or lost in the move, and evidence of them not responding to thread posts for months -- namely because vampire closed down months ago and I hadn't thought to save my vampire's thread at the time.
Whatever the case, I'm not seeking to tell people not to go back (though I'd like to), I'm simply presenting some things that really -did- happen to me -- there is likely more that happened to the other STs -- and presenting things as I read them in the logs given to me. Anything that talks directly about me is something that really honestly happened.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Old World of Darkness is a Dying Whore
Okay, so aside from my terrible attempt at a music reference, I think the topic of this little rant is obvious.
Well to those who know what it is.
Anyhow... it's been quite a few years since the World of Darkness ended with a bang (or a whimper, depending on how you played the final scenarios out) and the die hards are still around. People still play it, of course, but that is not the real topic. I have personally ensured at least one of the White Wolf staff got a paycheck month to month for many years now. My collection is primarily from their publishing house, after all.
The real topic is directed towards the online gaming community. The play by posts and the play by chats.
Back when they announced the demise of the Old World of Darkness line, people revolted. I found it odd because the over arching theme of the entire game line was that 'The world's gonna end sometime next week'. I mean... every game had it as a major plot-line that the World as They Knew it was crumbling and falling down. The Apocalypse is coming, Caine's gonna rise up and eat us all, Reality is falling apart around the Magi, Winter was knocking on the Fae's doorsteps and so on and so forth. We're all gonna die. Each game was like a ticking time bomb... yes, that ticking could be slower or faster as you needed but it was still ticking.
Then they said "Oh yea, by the way... here are the books that will help you run that ending" and those books were (overall) Quite Good. They answered most of the pressing questions we all had... I on more than one occasion cried out "I KNEW IT!". But the die hards of the online gaming community grumbled and griped. "They're abandoning us!" "This isn't fair!" "You owe us!"
First of all... and this goes for a great many things... DLC, Gaming etc... They don't Owe you SHIT. You are not entitled to these people giving you free shit, I promise. These people have families to feed, bills to pay and the company itself has things that require money.
Aside from that? The line had gone stagnant, it had become fat and overweighed in its own Metaplot. It had become constrained within the boundaries they had set for themselves. As a storyteller, I know I often felt tied down to what was published as canon. The only major issue was that there was so much of it, you often would have someone create a character or history that you had no idea about... you then question about it and they'd scoff "It's a perfectly acceptable bloodline and discipline introduced in the Hoboken after Dusk sourcebook. You don't HAVE That? pfft.. and that background is in the Ancient Blood and Dark Rituals book. It gives me 3 extra level five rituals per dot, regardless of my skill level because it's a dark library granted by Demons"
So you had quite a bit of issues with that there. Was the history interesting? Overall, yes. Was it sometimes convoluted, confusing and contradictory? Hell... Yes ~cough cough Mage cough cough~.
Anyhow. This is not about me deconstructing the old WoD. This is about my statement of... Maybe it's time we move on?
I mean, I'll still run tabletop (or online TT style games) of VtM and DtF but I think the time for online OWoD has run its course. There are still sites out there but they are coming and going faster and faster. It is still the same stable of players jumping from site to site. I refuse to acknowledge the idea of "Cliques" because that's just plain stupid. We all like playing with certain people... if you couldn't get into the "Clique"? Maybe it wasn't their fault... maybe you just suck. Thats not the truth ALL the time but that's what I've noticed a lot.
Those sites that are still out there though... they've grown a little stagnant. I see the same stories and same characters. I see the same PCs being recycled time after time (I'm as guilty as anyone on that, you like a PC so you keep playing them). The books are now near impossible to find unless you download the PDF editions. I feel as though we're all folks sitting on the bow of the Titanic, refusing to notice that the water is rising around us.
And damnit, that water is cold!
Does the New World of Darkness have its flaws? Yes. Is it Perfect? No. Do I like some of the things that they did? Most Assuredly so.
My stance? Let's get on that lifeboat and head over to the new unsinkable ship. Sure, it'll hit an ice burg but hey... at least we'll have fun until then.
It was fun while it lasted, we all had the characters that will stay with us. The stories that we will recount again and again. But I think it is time we put those stories where they belong, in our memories and personal tabletop groups.
I might write about this again sometime but that's what I have for now... anyone else have an opinion? A story from a favorite character? C'mon... Share!
Oni
Out
Well to those who know what it is.
Anyhow... it's been quite a few years since the World of Darkness ended with a bang (or a whimper, depending on how you played the final scenarios out) and the die hards are still around. People still play it, of course, but that is not the real topic. I have personally ensured at least one of the White Wolf staff got a paycheck month to month for many years now. My collection is primarily from their publishing house, after all.
The real topic is directed towards the online gaming community. The play by posts and the play by chats.
Back when they announced the demise of the Old World of Darkness line, people revolted. I found it odd because the over arching theme of the entire game line was that 'The world's gonna end sometime next week'. I mean... every game had it as a major plot-line that the World as They Knew it was crumbling and falling down. The Apocalypse is coming, Caine's gonna rise up and eat us all, Reality is falling apart around the Magi, Winter was knocking on the Fae's doorsteps and so on and so forth. We're all gonna die. Each game was like a ticking time bomb... yes, that ticking could be slower or faster as you needed but it was still ticking.
Then they said "Oh yea, by the way... here are the books that will help you run that ending" and those books were (overall) Quite Good. They answered most of the pressing questions we all had... I on more than one occasion cried out "I KNEW IT!". But the die hards of the online gaming community grumbled and griped. "They're abandoning us!" "This isn't fair!" "You owe us!"
First of all... and this goes for a great many things... DLC, Gaming etc... They don't Owe you SHIT. You are not entitled to these people giving you free shit, I promise. These people have families to feed, bills to pay and the company itself has things that require money.
Aside from that? The line had gone stagnant, it had become fat and overweighed in its own Metaplot. It had become constrained within the boundaries they had set for themselves. As a storyteller, I know I often felt tied down to what was published as canon. The only major issue was that there was so much of it, you often would have someone create a character or history that you had no idea about... you then question about it and they'd scoff "It's a perfectly acceptable bloodline and discipline introduced in the Hoboken after Dusk sourcebook. You don't HAVE That? pfft.. and that background is in the Ancient Blood and Dark Rituals book. It gives me 3 extra level five rituals per dot, regardless of my skill level because it's a dark library granted by Demons"
So you had quite a bit of issues with that there. Was the history interesting? Overall, yes. Was it sometimes convoluted, confusing and contradictory? Hell... Yes ~cough cough Mage cough cough~.
Anyhow. This is not about me deconstructing the old WoD. This is about my statement of... Maybe it's time we move on?
I mean, I'll still run tabletop (or online TT style games) of VtM and DtF but I think the time for online OWoD has run its course. There are still sites out there but they are coming and going faster and faster. It is still the same stable of players jumping from site to site. I refuse to acknowledge the idea of "Cliques" because that's just plain stupid. We all like playing with certain people... if you couldn't get into the "Clique"? Maybe it wasn't their fault... maybe you just suck. Thats not the truth ALL the time but that's what I've noticed a lot.
Those sites that are still out there though... they've grown a little stagnant. I see the same stories and same characters. I see the same PCs being recycled time after time (I'm as guilty as anyone on that, you like a PC so you keep playing them). The books are now near impossible to find unless you download the PDF editions. I feel as though we're all folks sitting on the bow of the Titanic, refusing to notice that the water is rising around us.
And damnit, that water is cold!
Does the New World of Darkness have its flaws? Yes. Is it Perfect? No. Do I like some of the things that they did? Most Assuredly so.
My stance? Let's get on that lifeboat and head over to the new unsinkable ship. Sure, it'll hit an ice burg but hey... at least we'll have fun until then.
It was fun while it lasted, we all had the characters that will stay with us. The stories that we will recount again and again. But I think it is time we put those stories where they belong, in our memories and personal tabletop groups.
I might write about this again sometime but that's what I have for now... anyone else have an opinion? A story from a favorite character? C'mon... Share!
Oni
Out
Friday, September 11, 2009
Internet "Culture"
The internet is a cesspool of idiocy and quickly degrading social ability. There's a certain equation that I feel honestly describes most popular websites out there. It's adapted from an equation describing X-Box Live from Penny Arcade. I've expanded it to better describe most people on the internet.
Person with Self Esteem and Self Worth Issues + Anonymity + Audience of like minded individuals = Douche-bag
Now this equation is self sustaining, you must understand. These mouth breathers feed off of one another and take things to new heights. Let's review some of their mantras.
"If you're offended over what I'm saying, then you should just lighten up"
-Bullshit. When a person reads terrible things written about them from multiple sources, then they're going to get offended. It's natural. You can only laugh off being called out by a group of Basement Dwellers for so long
"If it wasn't true, then you have no reason to worry"
-Bullshit. Because it isn't true, people should be upset and enraged. When one of these self haters lashes out at someone with hearsay and outright lies with the explicate purpose to incite people to Hate someone personally, the Lies hurt the most. I've read a lot of horrible stuff about a lot of people. Granted, I normally needed to headbutt a door jam for a half hour or so, just so my IQ drops low enough to be able to decipher it all. When I read this terrible shit, I don't normally see any HARD evidence to support their claims. What evidence there is is usually easily doctored or severely out of context. They run with an idea and slander someone, usually by simply being the loudest. If you scream loud enough (proverbially speaking, of course), then people will believe you.
Granted, the people that believe you are "people" JUST like you. So those folks take up arms and scream more until Evidence comes out of the woodwork on the Demon of the Week. Luckily for their targets, these Trolls have a very short attention span and tend to attack attack attack and then move on to their next object of hatred. Or their mom tells them to clean their room and they GTG.
What I propose is this... the Internet Douchebag Vigilante Squad.
The problem with these Mouthbreathing Trolls is that in real life, if they said anything like they do online, they'd be beaten within an inch of their worthless lives. I propose that we do just that. Simple premise really. Find, Beat with Socks full of Nickels, leave.
Okay so that falls under "Assault and Battery" but these dumbasses need to learn that actions have consequences. The internet doesn't make you immune and the internet isn't a Magical land of having no Identity.
Freedom of Speech gives you the right to say something... it never gave you the right to tell me I can't be offended by it, nor does it say that you are required to say it.
To any Trolls who read this and get all butthurt? If it wasn't True, you shouldn't be offended.
Oni
Out
Person with Self Esteem and Self Worth Issues + Anonymity + Audience of like minded individuals = Douche-bag
Now this equation is self sustaining, you must understand. These mouth breathers feed off of one another and take things to new heights. Let's review some of their mantras.
"If you're offended over what I'm saying, then you should just lighten up"
-Bullshit. When a person reads terrible things written about them from multiple sources, then they're going to get offended. It's natural. You can only laugh off being called out by a group of Basement Dwellers for so long
"If it wasn't true, then you have no reason to worry"
-Bullshit. Because it isn't true, people should be upset and enraged. When one of these self haters lashes out at someone with hearsay and outright lies with the explicate purpose to incite people to Hate someone personally, the Lies hurt the most. I've read a lot of horrible stuff about a lot of people. Granted, I normally needed to headbutt a door jam for a half hour or so, just so my IQ drops low enough to be able to decipher it all. When I read this terrible shit, I don't normally see any HARD evidence to support their claims. What evidence there is is usually easily doctored or severely out of context. They run with an idea and slander someone, usually by simply being the loudest. If you scream loud enough (proverbially speaking, of course), then people will believe you.
Granted, the people that believe you are "people" JUST like you. So those folks take up arms and scream more until Evidence comes out of the woodwork on the Demon of the Week. Luckily for their targets, these Trolls have a very short attention span and tend to attack attack attack and then move on to their next object of hatred. Or their mom tells them to clean their room and they GTG.
What I propose is this... the Internet Douchebag Vigilante Squad.
The problem with these Mouthbreathing Trolls is that in real life, if they said anything like they do online, they'd be beaten within an inch of their worthless lives. I propose that we do just that. Simple premise really. Find, Beat with Socks full of Nickels, leave.
Okay so that falls under "Assault and Battery" but these dumbasses need to learn that actions have consequences. The internet doesn't make you immune and the internet isn't a Magical land of having no Identity.
Freedom of Speech gives you the right to say something... it never gave you the right to tell me I can't be offended by it, nor does it say that you are required to say it.
To any Trolls who read this and get all butthurt? If it wasn't True, you shouldn't be offended.
Oni
Out
Getting to Know your Misanthrope
Alright. So I made a Blog. Nobody really cares what I think and that gives me a certain degree of freedom. I mean, if nobody is going to read it then I won't have to worry about what anyone says, right?
Here's the deal. Those who're reading this? Probably know me. So really, there's no reason for this post..so... fuck it
Here's the deal. Those who're reading this? Probably know me. So really, there's no reason for this post..so... fuck it
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