My turn to vent

Quote: from Athena on 3:19 am on July 12, 2003[br]GMs are also welcome to vent frustrations of their own here, cause trust me, it can get frustrating.

I have a few frustrations I'd like to vent. �:)

I'm certain that many of these are simple misunderstandings that with knowledge can be cleared up easily.

First off is responses from NPCs.

If you want to interact with an NPC, please don't just walk up to them, poke them, say something and walk away quickly. �I have heard much frustration (and spouted off enough of my own) from GMs who wish to give the player what they want by puppeting an NPC only to have the character walk away before the GM was able to do what is needed to properly handle the character's needs. �Yes, there are many times when a GMs are either unavailable because they aren't on, or are logged on but occupied with other things and/or don't see the request in the matrix like scroll of information we process. �xhelp-ing a request may seem like a good idea but is a very improper use of that command, and does not increase our ability to puppet NPCs �

On a related issue, NLM mail. �I received a complaint from a player who stated that they had mailed [NLM account removed] and had not heard a response. �After investigating the issue, I found that what -appears- to be the mail in question, was received about 12 hours before the complaint was received by me. �Again, it takes time. �Time to recognize the fact that mail has arrived, time to consider the topic of the mail and consider how the new information fits into any past, present or future plots, and time to draft an appropriate response.

Bottom line: - Interact with an NPC the way you want to, but give us time to give you what you want.

Second is the issue of characters using code or lack thereof, to avoid the IC implications of thier actions.

I don't want anyone to feel personally attacked by this as I am not directing this against any specific character or characters. It is -very- hard not to cite specific examples as a result. �But suffice it to say that taking massive quantities of a drug, pickpocketing policemen, walking around the streets of your home town with a shotgun and two hundred other pounds of gear under your cloak, hoarding insane amounts of gear in your apartment, walking into a business and ask for a job while smelling like so many rotted corpses, or any one of the many other actions we've all seen people perform are possible here but not realistic or themely. �If it's not realistic and it's not themely, then don't do it. If you feel it should be a bug, @bug it. �If you think it's an idea on how to improve the game, @idea it.

Bottom line: �Regardless of the code, or lack there of, IC actions have IC implications. �Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

Lastly is the way we often treat each other. �I've seen insults, barbs, taunts, jabs, darts, whatever you want to call it, hurled by many people here, for what seems to me to be no real reason. �The BgBB forums are filled with it

If someone has a good reason to be mean, nasty, spiteful, insulting, overbearing, or any of the other adjectives that could be used to describe how people often treat others OOCly here, please let me know as it seems to have escaped me.

With all the creative types we have here, all the people who can and do write well, surely there must be better ways to express your feelings and more effective ways to get your point across than by resorting to insults. �Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for this to be ShinyHappyPeopleMoo, but for the love of Bob people, if you have nothing good to say or at least constructive to add, show some class and don't get drawn into another useless flame war. �

Bottom line: �Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

[/vent]

taking massive quantities of a drug, pickpocketing policemen,

say my char. hates cops, he also thinks he can take a cop, or at least run from one on the off cahnce he is caught.  

and massive quantities of a drug can be subjective.  maybe for someone who's never taken it before massive is 2 doces, maybe if someone has taken it all the frickin time 4-6 is massive.  

which leads me to another thing about drugs.  I know an overdose script is in the works, and I would like to offer up suggestions about that.  first of all,(and I know some of these may be obvious)  weight, and size, and how often you take a drug should definately figure into those items.  another thing that I think should be included: the first couple times you reach your supposed limit,  you should pass out, or feel funny, or some other cue than :  you took too much, your heart pops out of your chest and you die.  espically after a ling time of taking drugs with no "coded" restrictions.  

When you die will relate to how much health you have, not how much you took.

you can be a junkie who's been using at low doses for years but hit one bad batch and somethings bound to fail.

will there be bad batches of drugs? :P

woo

but jink, can I hear some firsthand experiences with not-so-legal drugs?  if you don't go there I will.

and bad batches of drugs????  have we been watching too many after school specials??? ok I'm not going to deny that if you buy a drug you may not always get what you bargin for, but  in "real life" bad batches of a given drug mean (99% of the time) that you don't get anything of any value, not that you die, or get really sick or whatever.  feel free to contradict me with real life experiences, but I've had experience with illegal drugs from pot, to cocaine, to opiates, to hallucinagens for at least 10 years, and though I don't claim to be an expert of course, I have seen many hundreds of people take many thousands of drugs, and never once saw someone get a "bad dose" other than an ineffective dose.  

Everybody cuts their shit. If you didn't cut the pure cocaine, it would kill you.

Sometimes people cut it with different things, and the futher down the line, the more times it's likely to have been cut, because that's how dealers make their money (after you cut it, it weighs more, and is less effective).

So people get all used to their stuff. And after a while, they can take a ton of it, and really have a good time.

And then their dealer get's busted, or is out, or whatever and he goes somewhere else. What you can't know is that this stuff has been cut much less than what the guy's used to so it's much more pure… so he does a big gnarly hit, and keels over dead because his heart exploded.

To make a long story short:  It's not so much that it's 'bad', as that it's 'inconsistant'. What will give you a fun buzz one time may knock you out the next time, and without some way of measuring the levels (a destructive process... who's gonna waste their precious drugs?), you don't know what you got.

-Kevlar