#MeToo comes to Armageddon MUD

I came here after Nyr banned me - the first time since Vanth I had ever been banned on GDB/had karma removed/any kinda major issues at all - from the GDB when I brought up what Vanth had done, again, in public, and asking why I was still being punished. Because I was still being penalized from her initial punishment, literally YEARS later, maybe 7-8? I felt like that, anyway, that is was the same punishment sticking to me and would be permanent. It was really frustrating, especially considering I was reflecting on it a lot as my job at the time was cultivating medical cannabis in isolation deep, deep in the Colorado Rockies. Didn't have a whole lot much else to think about.

I can't EXACTLY remember how long her punishment had stuck, but I had gotten into it with Nyr almost as soon as he made staff when another player (whose name I've written here before but won't repeat now) told me how Nyr, after assuming control of my clan (one of the largest at the time), had used an NPC to tell that other player's NPC to kill my character. We really didn't get off on the right foot.

Maybe it would have been better if that player had not told me how that NPC had been used, but for a new imm to use a staff avatar to throw a, I dunno, 80 day merchant under the bus... It just caused me to dislike Nyr from the onset because, ICly, it did not make sense to me, especially considering no NPCs interacted with my character at all. I mean, if you as staff are going to use an NPC to interact with a templar over a problem, it seems like he would have similarly used an NPC to discuss the matter with my PC at the time.

With what I've seen in the game recently, I would like to believe that an NPC would have been used to interact with my character as well - or corresponded somehow. But there was zero communication from him, except hearing after the fact from a RL friend, face-to-face, in person, that he had used an NPC from my char's merchant house to condemn that character.

He came made staff, was set over my clan, and used an avatar NPC to basically condemn that char... This was in like 2006-7.

I later tried to make amends with Nyr, via email, and he basically told me to Fuck Off, that I would never play in his clans again, etc.


I never felt like being punished initially by Vanth was fair, and it continued to bother me for quite some time, especially since I felt like I had been following the rules of the game. Furthermore, I felt that, since Nyr obviously loathed me and had risen to the prominence of Sanvean, the punishment/bias would be indefinite.

Around that time, this board was created, and I read more and more stories about how people had been treated by Nyr. At first, I was *very* contemptuous of these forums, I mean, I really hated the very idea of them existing despite how similar they were to IRC forums and AIM group chats that had been present ever since I played Arm. I really loved the game and thought the idea of forums like this was bad, period. It reminded me of how, when I was playing gypsies, people would talk shit about gypsies (not knowing that I was one a lot of the time) on IRC because of the favoritism or whatever, which I would brush off as them being jealous of not having "earned it" like I had.


Then, I started reading more and more stories about how Nyr had treated people, and I was like, well fuck, there is obviously a REASON that so many people feel this way.

So, getting back to the Vanth thing: when I brought it up on the GDB to talk about it publicly in 2014 because I felt like I was being indefinitely punished over something OOC, Nyr got into an arguement with me, flamed me hard, edited the arguement to detract my credible points without indicating to readers that he had done so, and then banned me. I feel like we both could have handled the situation way differently, but Nyr obviously had a grudge against me, going to so far as to tell me I would NEVER play in one of his clans, and was now basically the new Sanvean. So, again, it felt like my punishment was going to be permanent - a punishment, again, that even Nyr agreed had been too harsh. It just didn't make sense, and I think that's because Vanth's OOC come-on to me had been rejected, causing her to arbitrarily and heavy-handedly punish me for using a certain Nilaz skill to travel back and forth between Nak and Tuluk.

This was justified ICly by claiming the NPC Nenyukis would have noticed my character entering an apartment and not leaving for days at a time, which seem shoddy anyway to me because, even IRL, I can go days without leaving home. Furthermore, if it was an IC slip-up on my character's part, then why try to levy an IC punishment (sending two half-giant NPCs after a Nilazi with less than 20 days played), fail, and then punish me OOCly for "abusing" the code?

I did not feel as though I had been abusing the code - and I still don't. If an IC mistake was made and my character was deemed in the eyes of that staffer to have made a mistake, it should not have spilled over into OOC removal of my karma after IC avenues to "catch" my character failed because a staffer, in a planned ambush, failed to kill a weak-ass mage with two HG Tuluki warriors. The fact that the OOC punishment stuck so long after Vanth is what I got into an argument with Nyr about; it and his response and my feelings that the punishment would remain indefinite that led me to begin posting here, especially after reading so many other people's stories about OOC problems with Nyr. I realized I wasn't the only one.


Now, there is a fair karma review system in place. A player knows, in no uncertain terms, what they SHOULD BE DOING and SHOULD NOT BE DOING in order to have a chance to have their karma raised.

This was not the case when I joined these forums, and it seemed to me as though, with Nyr then acting in Sanvean's capacity, that I would never be able to overcome a punishment levied almost a decade prior, a punishment that seemed entirely unfair and rooted in OOC bias, anyway.

Does that make sense at all?

To clarify, out of playing ArmageddonMUD for a long fucking time, I have not seen or heard of many other examples of this beyond my own. Then again, even when playing, I have had almost zero OOC contact *about the game* with friends for nearly a decade. I am part of zero OOC cliques of people outside of friends I made when APMs were a thing ten years ago, and, even in the times when these forums were BURSTING with critiques of the game... I can't really remember reading any stories about staff members sexually harassing or other being creeps to players.

During that time of sorta intense revolt, when Nyr was still essentially running the entire fucking game, I feel like, if there had been serious issues with staff members creeping on players on a wide scale, it would have been pounced upon. It didn't happen, so I do not buy into the idea that imms creeping on players is widespread.

Now, is it wrong for a staff member to OOCly approach and try to hit on/begin something romantic with a player? Of course not, and it wouldn't surprise me if that had happened.

I feel like it did happen to me, though. I mean, Vanth (crymerci) sent me this really weird message on AIM, something along the lines of, "I didn't think a guy like you would ever go for someone like mean," with the implication being that she thought I liked her... when I didn't find her attractive, nor had I said anything, to my knowledge, to lead her to believe that I was somehow attracted to her. It was a really strange message, and, since I was in the process of reducing my OOC communication, I blocked her as I had blocked many others, often for no reason at all except to be removed from the prospect of discussing the game and IC stuff, OOCly.

I believe this hurt her feelings, upset her, made her angry, or... something, and her resentment carried over when she made staff and climbed the ranks high enough to at least remove most of my good karma.

Again, I have heard of no other stories like this beyond my own, and I am reluctant to believe Looonsh did what has been claimed. Even if he (or any other staffers) came onto a player, I feel that would be okay, as long as, if rejection is the result, no grudges are held.

This isn't a corporation or the military. Fraternizing or attempting to do so should be okay, as long as the staff member does not allow that rejection to influence future interactions with that player, including but not limited to plot involvement, severity of punishments, lack of quality from mastercrafted items, missing out on special roles, etc.

In my case, I stand by what I said way before shit like Kevin Spacey being exposed hit the media and caused many to come forward with allegations of mistreatment/abuse. It just so happens to align with what happened with Vanth and this MeToo movement, but I think it is an uncommon occurance on ArmageddonMUD, yet one that should not be dismissed like my complaints were for years.

Would you be willing to elaborate? I never really got involved with SoI, but I'd be curious to hear the story.

Delerak has a shitty, albeit well deserved, stigma. I'd be curious to see how he'd do in a mud entirely different to Armageddon.

People grow up and change.

Delerak and I have been playing the game for mostly the same length, and, yes, as far back as my beginning days, he earned the ire of Sanvean and others.


Interestingly, he was the one who approached WotC with the possibility of Dark Sun copywrite infringement, which impacted ArmageddonMUD in very serious ways, causing the end of many races and paving the road to what would eventually become the Arm 2.0 project.

I remember reading a thread about all of that on an external source not long ago, but, meh.


A now-deceased ArmageddonMUD player, j0ram, the kind of player who was allowed to play gypsy witches despite having problems with Sanvean, also agreed that these changes were occuring as a result of the desire of some to more-readily monetize ArmageddonMUD with independently-published fiction (which would have been impossible if DarK Sun materil were heavily incorporated, save in the face of lawsuits).

Anyway, if he was using the name Delerak on SoI, then his reputation undoubtedly preceded him, stigma and all.

I agree with you, Mehtastic.

That said, I dont think the bench of replacement options are deep enough to replace half of current staff, even if you could get them to step down. 1 in every couple raised to staff will have the capability and time to stick with it.

Is there any credible way to document and manage a mending of fences without tossing more than 2 staff members out?

I think Delerak took a certain delight in stuff he did.  He could write more about this than I.


I have never trolled the game or tried to cause problems within the game, even making PK-oriented chars, much at all.  I just don't think people should be punished or have their IC goals thwarted, even down to petty mastercraft submissions, because a staff members holds a grudge and allows them to influence their treatment of players.

But people do hold grudges.  It doesn't have to be something as dramatic as ignoring romantic advances, but small shit, like, oh, I played with this guy and thought he sucked.  Or PK'd you or one your buddies... petty stuff.  Unfortunately, I think it does happen.


I look at the staff list and know scarcely any of them (as staffers), so I am hesitant to say anything at all about them.  But you can tell that a staffer has a tendency to be overly-aggressive or just a dick fairly easily by what they sometimes write on the GDB.  I can only think of one staffer in particular right now who regularly posts like that, but, even without reading the GDB much, it's just easy to see that they'd be the type of person to escalate shit OOCly and hold grudges.


Had these forums been around in the Bhag/Halaster stays, I'm sure people would have written just as much as some of their stuff as Nyr's; unlike Nyr, though, they did at least try to make things way more fun for people as a whole and were never even close to abrasive as Nyr was OOCly.


I have only seen the behavior of Nyr in maybe a couple of other staffers.  Some people are just nicer than others, and it goes a long way when dealing with a game like this.  Nyr did not have the capacity or patience to accomplish this, essentially poisoning a large part of the game, the effects of which are still felt.

bolded is true only if u werent a vet (10+ years) during his staff tenure