Peanut gallery: Leader PCs should be required to fade ERP

Back in the day, my AoD sergeant would take a rare day to pursue personal RP with their e-girlfriend. If there was something serious going on, you could Way them, they would fade whatever and then speedwalk in to the important thing and perform their role. Which I believe is the most reasonable perspective. If you're playing a sponsored role, you should prioritize facilitating the aspects of the game that you've volunteered to do. Of course.

But to flip the whole thing turn-ways: the sponsored role does have the right to brush off some things / inquiries / hooks they're not interested in doing. Just because someone is bumping text uglies, it doesn't somehow mulligan your bullshit into a vector worth engaging.

> How do long sessions of ERP contribute to the game more than fade to black? Seriously, I am asking out of a lack of understanding.

This is content. People play the game for content that they enjoy. If someone didn't like the content, they wouldn't be pursuing it. The purpose of the game is to provide enjoyable content: if we have disagreements on this, then pull the rack and save the CPU cycles.

Sure there is. And I will articulate one.

Axioms: 1) Armageddon is a game of cooperative fiction. 2) The general form of content that is consumed by players should be content that is enjoyable to those players (and to say otherwise is to assign malevolence to the game, under merit of abuse and unnecessary cruelty to an honest heart). 3) With no stakes or suffering to occur in the happenstance that the structures of Arm's narrative fail to fulfill their mandate (as opposed to say, a real-world bureaucracy or entity), there is an order of cardinality less tension in the impacts of Armageddon in juxtaposition to the real-world.

If the question is, "What does it contribute to the game" and "Because they enjoy it" is not a valid answer, then consider the following. Arm, being a game of cooperative fiction, is fundamentally a game of relationships. These relationships are OOC, and IC; and it is from these relationships that characters achieve the force multiplier of cooperation that allows them to achieve things in the game that are well above and beyond any scope of a single entity's own agency. This begets a fertile environment for sincere relationships of varying intensity - varying from convenience, to symbiotic, to sincere romanticism. I assert the game is the relationships. Or, if you don't like that, then I assert that after ten thousand hours of exhaustive exploration of the entirety of Armageddon's mechanics to the point of interest death: the only novelty remaining under the Dark Sun is, the relationships.

What form is a text relationship to take, and under what authority does anyone have to limit it? There are certain restrictions put upon "relationships", such as no rape / no pedophilia (see axiom 2). But in all aspects of Armageddon's construction and its presentation as a "harsh, gritty environment", it pursues a fantastical grounded realism. Let me be curt. There is nothing more real in a relationship than fuckin'. See the biological ramifications, the endorphins, the pair-bonding of the human condition, et cetera. In fact, to be in a romantic relationship and not to be fuckin' is (these days) considered dysfunctional. So it follows that, as Armageddon is a convenient setting of a fantastical reality, as above, so below, people do be fuckin'.

Which I'm sure you'll agree with. I think your issue is not with the implication of the fuckin' per se; but rather, the time spent on it. Particularly on your use of "long" to qualify the MUDsex session. I'll address that directly. In the scope of an individual's narrative fiction, erotic content is not necessary to establish the scope of intimate relationships: since those interpersonal details are established by author fiat, any eroticism is necessarily gratuitous, or in other words, not necessary to explore. A small blurb can summarize thirty pages of bedsheet tumbling. This is in contrast to cooperative fiction, where it is not the author's will that be wrought; rather, it is a combined experience of two (or more!) characters "sharpening" one another through these erotic gyrations. That is to say - an author's mind can dictate his characters' agency in individual fiction, whereas this is not the case in narrative fiction. So in order to reach a depth of relationship development in cooperative fiction, these long sessions of intimacy are necessary. The only other possibility is OOCly communicated fiat between players, which does not rise to the thoroughness of an author's complete control over their characters' agency nor does it rise to the understanding of the relationship that an intimate scene produces. Perhaps you've never had sex before, so I will tell you this as a courtesy: when in an intimate situation, a character may display traits or behaviors that challenge or even contradict his normal behavior. It is in these explorations that certain facets of a character, unknowable through any other vector, are made apparent.

And what is the benefit of these explorations? A more complete character, for those that prioritize exploring that facet of narrative development. Complete characters are good in this narrative game of cooperative fiction (axiom 1); therefore, it contributes positively to the game. QED.

When you say that there is no rational argument, what you mean to say is that there is no utilitarian argument. Which is true, as these explorations are selfish; and the utilitarian perspective necessarily places the collective good ahead of the self. However, that being apparent, does not negate the inherent worth of a selfish enrichment. As for the drawbacks of long mudsex sessions, I point to axiom 3. This is a game, and no part of this story draws blood in real life. I will be the first to acknowledge the pains and problems of long mudsex sessions, be they availability or incompatible priorities and so on. But these drawbacks do not negate: the benefits and drawbacks stand on their own.

So I'll do you one better than "live and let live". The character that comes out of the apartment room after 6 hours of fuckin' is more of a character than he was going in. And if you don't believe that, well... You've never mudfucked a Krathi witch until you both almost died of dehydration, and then took her strength-enchanted vibrating nipple piercing. And you have my pity.

you just dont understand

every time i "emote rides u, breasts quaking like flowers in the desert wind" for two hours while isolated behind a locked door with someone else it benefits everyone or whatever

i am definitely engaging in explicit erotic content for the character development and story that definitely adds to the game you see

yeah that's what i keep trying to tell all the local dnd groups in my area

they're not REALLY getting engaged in their characters and the world they're playing in unless they're fuckin' explicitly and for long stretches of time

the unenlightened prudes have still overwhelmingly decided to keep me banned from their tables

it's bullshit

In the list of potential issues with/in Armageddon MUD, if numbered by priority, mudsex is ... idk man. #69.

It's pretty far back there. Removing or putting heavy restrictions on ERP would only serve to further kill the game. That I can promise you.

It would be the equivalent of removing relationship roleplay from your average GTA RP server. Unless this is a highly popular server with a queue of 100 people waiting to login at any one time... you would kill the server. Armageddon is not a game or a community with a queue of people waiting to login. In fact leaning into the ERP/sexualized themes and doubling down on the adult nature of the game might actually serve to substantially grow the game if done well. You know, alternative universe Armageddon where it's not staffed by inane redditors and milquetoast boomers.

In years past, I've definitely been blown off by leadership PCs who I could only assume were busy getting dicked down. If someone seems wholly disinterested in interacting with you, why would YOU want to interact with them? Find better players to surround yourself with. Of course this often leads to the unfortunate conclusion that Armageddon is a small, dying game that almost always lacks a source of good players and clans, but if you think preventing these people from getting their virtual rocks off would fix this, you may be more autistic than me.

GUYS, GUYS! Pay attention to me! No, stop forming relationships! We have to prioritize the imaginary plot where we're all digging for virtual rocks and ore! Bonus points if Lotion is playing a half-giant, or wants to constantly report the most mundane happenings to their superior, such as spotting a spider outside the walls.

It was a major component when you first started playing.

You went from a state of complete unawareness, to partial awareness.

Your experience changed with your perspective.

People engage in the same behavior and activities as they always have. Don't worry, I think this realization happens to many.