But I enjoy stepping on toes.

Seriously though?  For me the Gallows is obscurity. 

I look at it, I see changes are made, and I carry on.  I have no idea what might be questionable and what might not be.  Hell, even when I think something is questionable, I don't really know for sure.  Maybe because I'm a permenant rules newbie, or maybe because my brain has taken one too many concussions... or something.  But if I think something is glaringly obvious, I pipe in.  Like about Diana's smoke thingy.  I thought that was something very broken so I talked about that for a good two hours with a few people (to include Diana at some point) because I thought that was just insanely undoable.  Eventually, after much repeating from other people, I got into my thick skull that it is indeed possible and it has a cool effect.

I think there have been 1 or 2 other times that people have actually -asked- about it all before hand to ensure that what they were actually doing wasn't against the rules.

That's just it Hades, I ignore it because I have the option of not allowing bullshit in any run I run. If someone wants to cheat, then I simply correct that problem from the get go.

Considering how many possible ways there are to spend 400 bp I'm not even REMOTELY going to try and go over every +sheet I see on a run that get's shown to me, and I'm certainly NOT going to spend every waking hour checking the Gallows of all things. Mistakes happen, people respond to them differently. I've made more than a few. I think I have two characters I have to +kill still simply because I fucked up and they're against the rules.

I also have several characters that have never, and will never, see a run. Rant was completely and 100% by the rules, and he's overbearingly strong simply because of his focus. If I take him on a run, I'd have to consciously choose to not throw out a Force 10 Spirit that can tromp practically everything without risk even though doing things without risk is a VERY profitable thing to do in Shadow Run. It's the same thing with his spells. A group of gangers start for Rant, he ducks back and takes control of one of their peons and starts shooting the other gangers, they turn on each other and destroy themselves.

Where's the -fun- in that? So Rant has never, and will never, see the light of a run because it's not fair to the others.

I've purposefully held back with Arctic, gave him a very 'I do not care' attitude so that he didn't just go in and take everything out in one round through judicious use of gunfire or cyber spurs.

Cobalt hung back and waited while other people tried their idea's before he smashed through a door/wall/both and took out the bad guys when the other runners got pinned down.

So there's a LOT of elements that happen on a Player Ran game, and one of those elements is policing each other to an extent BUT none of us have the POWER to say 'Cheat and you get banned'.

Hell lord knows I've been always offering to help people make characters, I've always offered advice. I haven't always been right, but I try to 'police' by offering help rather than sifting through the Gallows. As some have noticed I am sure I haven't been able to be around as much as I used to be. So I don't know the reasoning behind stuff that is listed on the Gallows. It's somewhat naive to think that people are going to hawkishly watch the Gallows all the time and run around being little storm troopers about it, at least in my opinion.

It's a player ran game, that means we'll deal with questionable practices as individuals, each individual will react differently as it has different levels of import.

If -you- care about these questionable practices, then do something about it. Bring them to light so that people know, or tell people they can't do that. Make a player object if you want to to do so. Me? There is no real rules, everything is way way crazy beta, I'm just glad that people are PLAYING.

Wow.  I'm okay with questionable practices?  What does that even mean?  I'm okay with a person riding the razor edge between rules abuse and the true rules?  Questionable practices are just that, things to question.  I'm neither okay with them nor worried about them, why?  Because I need answers to my QUESTIONS first.

I actually do watch the Gallows, I read who spends what karma where, what people are getting what karma and money for what sort of runs.  Sigil will remember when I saw a plot give quite a bit of cash and karma and I asked, "Big run huh?"  And was responded with it being a 3 day event that was over 20 hours or something ludicrous like that of play and was against all odds and finally got done.  Others from the same plot were almost exhausted happy, like you get after some serious drek goes down.

Bam.  Done.  I caught Tear's little mistake on the character sheet and thought her response was more than fair, seeing as in this game no one would've caught it to begin with except me cause I actually add up BP really fast in my head and things seem 'off' sometimes.  And in this case it was even easier, but she came up with a great response for it post-cg without destroying her character.  I've talked non-stop about rules with Andromeda, I've talked about the crazy drake nodaichi wielding monstrosity that was birthed in our CG but never made it to the grid to see if it was possible too.

So, when I see questionable things, I ask the players responsible for it about it.  Because in the end the player is responsible to fix it.  As long as something is done that seems fair, I'm good with it.  I'm not going to go posting up each little item that I see that's off.  I'm not going to wonder about every single karma expenditure, but things... for sure, that seem odd I ask about.  I went through 22 pages of changes when I came active back a few months, and I looked through EVERY single change people made.  I'm that person.  And in all of that, I asked quite a few people about quite a few things, some people no longer available to ask I ignored.

It happens, just because staff doesn't see it literally means nothing.  Just because staff has a problem with it, means nothing.  I am thankful this place exists for those two reasons, again and again.  Every time I participate in a plot. 

I feel that this entire thread can be summed up with one word. "Trust".

Here's how I look at it:  we are all GMs.  We can do anything that a reasonable GM would allow.  For instance, if you're really unhappy with your character build, but really love your character concept, would a reasonable GM let you rebuild your sheet?  Sure.  Would a reasonable GM perhaps let you rearrange your qualities because you just realized that you overlooked a few that would have made a lot more sense?  Why not?  But would a GM let you give yourself extra karma or nuyen for nothing?  No, of course not.

What I am hearing from Hades and Noor is, "If I were GM, I wouldn't allow that."  I think that's neither here nor there.  You're not GM.  Everyone EXCEPT you is the GM.  I'm not saying you shouldn't let your opinion be heard, but until you assume command of the game world, we're all responsible for ourselves.  Each of us gets to decide how strict a GM we want to be.  As long as what we're doing is within reasonable GM discretion, then that's all you can ask for.

I am all for liberal GMing at this stage.  This is a new game, and there has to be room to make mistakes, and then to subsequently fix them without having to scrap your character.  People should play however makes them happy.  That, I believe, is most conducive to building a bigger game, letting everyone be happy with their GM.  And since their GM is themselves, the only way that this would not happen is if we let others make discretionary calls for us.



On the other hand...  wouldn't letting other people make calls for us introduce a lot of fairness to the game?  Like instead of rolling to ourselves when we want something, we +judge it, except that every player is a judge?  On the other hand, it might not make much difference.  For instance, two players could +judge each other all the time and create a two-way cheat.  Also, it would be lame to have a +judge tell you "no," especially because he's just another player, and his style of playing Shadowrun might be fundamentally different from your own (or he might have no idea what he's talking about).  And couldn't someone just rope in another +judge and play the field until one says yes?  So it's probably not that good of an idea, it relies on the same honor system that we currently use, but adds another layer of interpersonal conflict that couldn't be healthy.

A MUSH is supposed to be a collective project: a world developed by a group of people subscribing to a particular set of rules, standards, or values. Tear's argument appears to be that no player should be able to tell another player what to do or hold him/her to any standard at all. Is that genuinely what the playerbase wants? Or are they simply afraid of offending their close knit group by dissenting?

The mush -is- a collective project, and it's currently going. The rules we are using are the book rules, with no optional rules what-so-ever. If we had an approval process by a GM other than ourselves things might not get missed as much, such as needing the Restricted Gear Quality for the move by wires that Tear put on Bubblegum. It was fixed. In fact it probably cost more to fix it the way she did than if she'd pulled 5 bp out of somewhere else on her sheet (Like a specialty -2 karma, and one point in a low skill - 4 karma, or 8 karma) or at the very least break even.

It's not as if she tried to cheat, she made a mistake. That's all there is to it.  The mistake was fixed, problem solved.

As part of the collective I am fine with that a LOT more than someone rolling over karma for example from pc's that didn't die or whatever to give a boost to a new character. To whit: This is coming across very nastily at this point. It seems like Noor and Hades are wanting people to bring the collective hammer down on Tear for what she did, and they are upset because we (the ones who are responding to this thread anyways) don't seem to be.

So, I guess there's only one answer I can really give:

I as a player have no problem with how she handled it.

If you as a staffer want staff to take a more active roll in the goings on of the players, then awesome, lay down some rules beyond the 'book is the rule' we currently are using, start having someone go over character sheets, require backgrounds, need staff approvals and run queues. I'd love to see the game progress into such a phase, and I think our player base -would- grow if we did. Not everyone wants to be the GM. Not everyone -can- be the GM which is why some of them leave.

Until then however... I guess just bring something up if you see it come up on Gallows like you did, but it seems the police force, aka the players this time aren't really upset with what happened.

I don't get to play much, and I think this is my first post, so my opinion probably doesn't matter much. Cheating is cheating. I will not over look it, not after its been pointed out and proven. I've looked at the back log and buying Restricted Gear post  chargen for gear she shouldn't have had in the first place is hardly the first 'questionable practice' that Bubblegum is guilty of.

I don't think I'll be giving Bubblegum any karma. Nor will I give any karma to those players that think just cause they are in charge they can't be accused of cheating. This reeks too much of the problems plaguing other MUSHes. Of course, the difference here is, I don't have to stand for it.

I think I'll take back any karma I may have given them in the past.

There's a difference between cheating and making a mistake.

Someday you'll realize everyone is human and nobody is perfect.

And someday you will realize that it was cheating.

Fixing a mistake by doing something that's not allowed is called cheating.

No, in that you're wrong.

Cheating is purposefully breaking the rules, not trying to account for a screw up that was made using a coded system that has no checks and balances on it, doesn't accurately add up bp's right, and doesn't check to make sure the sheet is legal.

Anyone can make a mistake with the web chargen. It's really easy to do so actually even if it's not a case of lag not removing or not adding something (which does happen) the web based program does not do anything but add up certain numbers and tell you when it's over 400. It doesn't tell you you've spent over 35bp in qualities. It doesn't tell you that you've got more than 35 bp in negative qualities. It doesn't tell you you can't get an availability 21+ piece of gear with restricted gear quality just cuz you the player might have forgotten that, nor does it tell you that you have a piece of gear that requires the restricted gear quality.

Mistakes happen. An honest mistake is not cheating.

You are inclined to think Tear is this demonic person who is out to cheat and ruin the game somehow rather than give someone the benefit of the doubt even when they do what is logical to fix the sheet rather than throw away ongoing story lines that have been in development for months just because of a sheet error.

But whatever, you're free to be as draconian as you want. I'm free to disagree with that 'interpretation'.

Try this then. A new book comes out with new toys in it. Player X says, "Oh, I wish I had all those new toys." Is a reasonable GM going to say

a) "Why don't you rewrite your whole sheet and get them?"
b) "Why don't you +kill your PC and rewrite it with all the new toys?"
c) "Better start saving your nuyen?"

So Tear is Bubblegum?

I don't doubt that taking Move by Wire II in chargen was a mistake. I'm saying buying RG after chargen to cover the mistake isn't a mistake. Its cheating. It allows her to keep the gear she shouldn't of had. It keeps her from having to acquire it In-Game.

She should remove the Move By Wire II. Take it at rating one, or something else of equal or lesser value that is allowed.

While we are justifying Bubblegum's actions:

http://forum.newseattle.org/index.php/topic,1497.0.html

Explain to me how this is not cheating.

The difference is that this piece on her sheet has been there since she created the character. It's not something new. A Reasonable GM would have realized that they missed that the character was missing the requisite quality and figure out how to take care of it from there WITHOUT destroying the character or invalidating all the previous gaming sessions where that piece of equipment had been used and influenced the game.

So does the GM say 'Oh damn, all of these prior gaming sessions never happened, nobody ever got any karma, nobody knows each other and we are starting over.' or does the GM figure out how to handle it that keeps the story going?

Considering I don't know bubblegums sheet, I don't know how close she's running the ragged edge essence wise, I would -suggest- to swap out the move by wire with alpha wired reflexes and alpha reflex enhancers 2. That is about the same essence cost of -standard- move by wires 2. If the move by wires 2 were Alpha then you're looking at a difference of .4 more essence and 86000 nuyen.

That said, to answer your question, the answer in THAT situation you came up which (Which isn't this situation at all) my answer would be C of course. But that isn't the same situation as what happened.

Edit: Re: Sunabozu - Bravo on your dirt digging skills. -THAT- I don't agree with at all, which is not what I was discussing before.

You don't invalidate a previous gaming session when you realize that someone rolled more dice than they should have, do you? No. You make a note and see that it doesn't  happen again.

Removing the MBWII or replacing it would be the same thing. So she had more dice and IPs. The next time, she won't. Simple as that.

I'm glad you don't approve of:

http://forum.newseattle.org/index.php/topic,1497.0.html

Its been urking me for some time now. I should have said something when it happened. I hope other people will speak up when they see something they don't agree with.