Tiny Chat People

I disagree both with the dumb character limit rule and with "don't actually communicate with these people because...um..." (well there's not actually any good* reason not to). Both of them look to me like flavors of "hey look at this wonderful freeform game we can play! K now let's put arbitrary restrictions on ourselves to make it more difficult to do fun and/or effective things."

*-I mean, independence? When was the last time a non-insane parent actively decided to stop communicating with their child in WORDS and start communicating only in gifts and vague hand gestures? Oh, right that was NEVER.

But I suggest in this adventure so rarely that it doesn't actually affect me that much either way.

I agree with some form of limiting the number of suggestions each 'player' can make, because the thread routinely turns into a clusterfuck due to trying to do too many things.

*-I mean, independence? When was the last time a non-insane parent actively decided to stop communicating with their child in WORDS and start communicating only in gifts and vague hand gestures? Oh, right that was NEVER.

As far as we could see it didn't look like any of the other gods are doing it. If it was expected to be a regular thing it'd just be a feature and not a loophole we invented.

Plus we're way clingier than any parent should be, when was the last time any kid appreciated their parent barging into their room and delivering twelve conflicting and disgustingly self-flaggelatory messages every ten minutes? Oh right, that was never.

Our messages have rarely done anything other than salve our own conscience.

I agree, I don't even think we can go around comparing ourselves to real life parents in a human sense anyway. Like most parents don't go around beaming info into their kid's heads without permission, only talking via notes, tossing items at them with no info behind it, and creating them with a purpose in mind and said purpose may or may not harm them pretty badly.

That or I totally got ripped off in the parent department. Where is my years of education beamed into my head instantly, and several friendly bees Mom?

If we seriously are going to stop direct communication, at least in the way we've been doing it, then we should ask the other gods how they communicate with their cats. Instead of bumbling around trying to figure it out ourselves, because there are too many conflicting ideas about what we should be doing.

I honestly think we should take a step back, but recent suggestions are not taking into account the fact that we can't just cut them off. It would not only frighten them to suddenly find that we've stopped sending them letters but it would also be incredibly rude to not tell them that we won't be sending any more.

I made sure to include in our final letter that the cats shouldn't expect any more letters for that reason.

To be honest, I'm not trying to act like a parent, nor did we even act like one. At best, we are acting like a decently responsible guy.

The analogy to parents is obviously imperfect, but it's selected specifically to highlight how absurd the decision to not directly communicate is. Friends and national leaders are also among people who don't suddenly stop communicating directly and start talking in gifts and vague gestures--EVEN if the direct communication is conflicting or harmful at times. Really the idea basically applies to literally any relationship between people whatsoever except for maybe the most bizarre of acquaintanceships.

5 creates and 5 teaches per suggester per update is not a restriction. it's like a 300mph road speed limit.

The same could be said of the 140 character limit, you could easily make, like, 15 things in one update if you didn't offer any explanation. 5 was just the number I came up with off the top of my head, we can change it to whatever we want whenever we want.

5 creates and 5 teaches per suggester per update is not a restriction. it's like a 300mph road speed limit.

The same could be said of the 140 character limit, you could easily make, like, 15 things in one update if you didn't offer any explanation. 5 was just the number I came up with off the top of my head, we can change it to whatever we want whenever we want.

I said this already in the thread, thought I might as well bring it here - "I feel 2 CREATEs and 1 TEACH will be better.

I would also like to suggest limiting GIVEs to 2."

I agree with the others that the letters are hamfisted and cringy as fuck, and support putting a stop to them. They never were about the game itself, but an attempt by the suggester to draw everybody's attention to themselves.

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I think this whole thing is being taken too seriously. I enjoy giving suggestions and discussing their implications, but at this point the discussion itself is becoming a chore, and it's almost dramatic in nature. I'm not having fun any more.

I just wanted to give our kitties some fun toys and skills to play with, but the threads are in a state where I feel I have to justify my ideas instead of simply letting them be, and now I feel those justifications are being criticized for existing at all. Maybe that's my own doing? Maybe that's a result of the environment that's being created? I dunno, I'm not a sociologist I guess.

Maybe the character limit is a good idea after all; anything to bring an end to the drudgery that suggesting for this adventure has become.




As for the limit itself, I'm still not convinced that 140 is adequate for what we're dealing with. While a limit in general would solve a lot of current problems, I fear that this limit is too arbitrary, and too small. I know from experience and observation that expressing a complete thought in 140 characters can be quite frustrating - and while allowing limit breaks is an option, it's not an end-all solution. Twitter itself is raising their limit to 280 characters. 280 might be too high, though, so I think 200 would be a nice middle ground. That's ten extra words on average, enough for this sentence.

i hate people's attitudes surrounding this. i doubt a character limit is going to fix that. communication could be positive, but it hasn't been because a good number of us have collectively been insisting on taking up a paternalistic attitude that's done nothing but drive wedges between us and the cats. we've held back on compassion and transparency out of fear of further losing control over intelligent entities we simultaneously view as children and extensions of our own will, we failed to get across a cohesive message when we needed to most, and now we're cutting out our own tongue in the hopes it'll somehow make things better. instead of debating about how we can moderate kitet's thread without the slightest bit of input from them, we should consider that we're on increasingly shaky ground regarding the cats faith in us, and work together to rectify that- leaving full communication open as an option, but readjusting the way we view and treat the tcps.

for now, some lighthearted goodtimes with tubes is a good way forward- it'll help pull our hearts together, moving the thread towards being a warmer environment, guiding us to act more constructively in the future

Hey

So, i don't like stepping in to the discussion stuff, because I don't like telling people that they're suggesting the "wrong" things in a sandbox adventure (but yes it's possible to suggest the wrong things in this adventure, as we have found out)

But I might as well step in to provide a little author guidance in the way of clearing up how some things work. So, while I procrastinate on writing the next update, ask me things about how the game of TCP works, that you may be confused about! But don't ask me if your suggestion is good or bad, I can't tell you that.

(answers i will give include: "i can't talk about this yet", "i revealed this in an earlier update but i can clear it up, here" and cryptic clues involving hints of information i dropped in previous updates that literally everybody ignored)

Alright. Where do dungeons come from? How do we explore more dungeons?

Can our mode of communication affect our cats in anyway?

Simply sending letters isn't damaging our relationships with the cats, it's the content in the letters that resulted in bad outcomes. Right?

How nice is Grind's butt?

how far do you plan ahead ever

i agree with everything wheat wrote

also it just occurred to me that vetos should not count towards your character count

this is exactly why a temporary character limit would be helpful. right now the time between every update is a slog of Discourse™ between all the suggesters and it doesn't seem like there's any sign of us letting up by us voluntarily showing restraint. our indecision and infighting in the suggestions bleeds into the mood of the updates, and (probably worst of all) makes the content of the updates center around frog-crimes more than the tcps. we could use a clean break away from that if we want lighthearted good times.


give the tcps things. have them interact. let them make up their minds and form their own thoughts on things. when they ask us things, answer them with what they need to hear without putting our hand on the scale so much.

more below

SpoilerShow

the first letters were helpful for transparency and apologizing. but we're still apologizing and it's getting kind of uncomfortable because now it feels like we're trying to manipulate them into a favorable response to our terrible actions without first doing the work of getting our shit together. we absolutely should not be listened to, trusted or forgiven yet. all the words in the world apologizing are worthless if they aren't backed by a change in our actions, behaviors and attitudes - and we haven't managed to do that yet. what would be much more trustworthy for our cats making their minds up about what happened is hearing fern's POV (or grind's if fern makes it to grind and tells them all about it).

A hurdle toward every individual suggester trying to impulsively impose their own vision of how to perfectly placate the tcps all at once might act well for getting us to learn to be cohesive. if it doesn't, well at least we won't be doing as much harm by pulling the cats in dozens of different directions at once.

After all, the breaking point for fern was an impulsive question at a really inappropriate time overwhelming them. I think it would be much easier to decide whether to do or not to do a thing if it's cut and dry.
("revive gnome and drag corpse home" is much easier to argue for or against than "I think we should try to revive the gnome. it might be unpleasant at first, but it could, in the end, ultimately be helpful to fern's state of mind, and for learning about the world we're in, for reasons a, b, and c...." which some people actually start to take reasonably after enough reasonable-seeming justification.)


So I think we should restart at square one of communication and build up to long form communication once we prove we can cooperate enough to use it responsibly. that way we won't keep tripping over all the words we leave out everywhere and crushing the tcps in the process.


and yes i realize the irony of making a long explanation for shortening discourse.

you have a good point and i'm not against a temporary limit, but i'd like to emphasize the word temporary

i am concerned that we'll fight on removing the limit when it's time to do so

I agree; the precision of language is what's needed here. Complicating things, as it turns out, makes things complicated. Hopefully we can maintain that as we bounce back from twitter mode, to avoid fighting again.

If nothing else, this would serve as a proof of concept that Frog-Crimes is capable of self-moderating. Something that has been severely lacking, and which has strained all of our relationships in the game.

for now, some lighthearted goodtimes with tubes is a good way forward- it'll help pull our hearts together, moving the thread towards being a warmer environment, guiding us to act more constructively in the future

this is exactly why a temporary character limit would be helpful. right now the time between every update is a slog of Discourse™ between all the suggesters and it doesn't seem like there's any sign of us letting up by us voluntarily showing restraint. our indecision and infighting in the suggestions bleeds into the mood of the updates, and (probably worst of all) makes the content of the updates center around frog-crimes more than the tcps. we could use a clean break away from that if we want lighthearted good times.


give the tcps things. have them interact. let them make up their minds and form their own thoughts on things. when they ask us things, answer them with what they need to hear without putting our hand on the scale so much.

more below

SpoilerShow

the first letters were helpful for transparency and apologizing. but we're still apologizing and it's getting kind of uncomfortable because now it feels like we're trying to manipulate them into a favorable response to our terrible actions without first doing the work of getting our shit together. we absolutely should not be listened to, trusted or forgiven yet. all the words in the world apologizing are worthless if they aren't backed by a change in our actions, behaviors and attitudes - and we haven't managed to do that yet. what would be much more trustworthy for our cats making their minds up about what happened is hearing fern's POV (or grind's if fern makes it to grind and tells them all about it).

A hurdle toward every individual suggester trying to impulsively impose their own vision of how to perfectly placate the tcps all at once might act well for getting us to learn to be cohesive. if it doesn't, well at least we won't be doing as much harm by pulling the cats in dozens of different directions at once.

After all, the breaking point for fern was an impulsive question at a really inappropriate time overwhelming them. I think it would be much easier to decide whether to do or not to do a thing if it's cut and dry.
("revive gnome and drag corpse home" is much easier to argue for or against than "I think we should try to revive the gnome. it might be unpleasant at first, but it could, in the end, ultimately be helpful to fern's state of mind, and for learning about the world we're in, for reasons a, b, and c...." which some people actually start to take reasonably after enough reasonable-seeming justification.)


So I think we should restart at square one of communication and build up to long form communication once we prove we can cooperate enough to use it responsibly. that way we won't keep tripping over all the words we leave out everywhere and crushing the tcps in the process.


and yes i realize the irony of making a long explanation for shortening discourse.

I agree 100% with this, especially the spoilered part is how I feel about things right now.

Alright. Where do dungeons come from? How do we explore more dungeons?

Dungeons are generated near player bases, with the exclusion of the starting player. You can see this with how the Candy Mine dungeon was very near Macarons base. If you want to explore more dungeons, you'll just have to find them - but I can't guarantee that they'll still have treasure in them for you.

Can our mode of communication affect our cats in anyway?

Simply sending letters isn't damaging our relationships with the cats, it's the content in the letters that resulted in bad outcomes. Right?

Right. The form of communication you use does matter, as the letters keep more of your specific words intact than simple direct "Communication", but you guys are just, uh, not great at handling certain personalities.

How nice is Grind's butt?

Grind is a quadruped, he doesn't have a butt.

how far do you plan ahead ever

kinda far actually, but I'm trying to keep stuff flexible on account of our protag character being a lot worse of a person than I expected.

Is TCP a video game? a virtual reality sim? an alternate reality? and are there cheat codes?

Is it possible to reset your spot in a session or reboot an avatar?

1. This isn't something I've talked about in the thread and I kinda don't feel like this thread should get to know the specifics, for reasons :y
2. no cheat codes.
3. not at all.

also, for my sake, I'm interested in the "1 create+teach per suggestion per update" self-imposed rule. It's been getting hard to keep track of all the items you want me to have visible in every panel. but yeah I'm also getting super tired of keeping track of what you guys want regarding the post restrictions too... my computer's still not fixed and I'm gonna just buy a new one. look forward to my patreon, coming soon

How nice is Grind's butt?

Grind is a quadruped, he doesn't have a butt.

So I was eating a piece of pumpkin pie and got to thinking to myself.

This inadvertently raises an interesting line of thought. I believe Macaron has hands, judging from her character portraits. So she might be some sort of humanoid, or at least possess a humanoid torso. But with Grind as a quadruped and Frog-Crimes as... whatever the hell Frog-Crimes is, the gods seem to have extremely varied body shapes. Obviously we designed our own form, to some extent, but it makes me curious about a few things.

Are there non-humanoid TCPs? So far they seem to follow a humanoid template. Does this suggest that non-humanoid gods are rare, and thus the template of these beings is based on a bipedal majority? Or are TCPs modeled after a specific god? My guess would be Wax himself, if he's the admin of the 'game'.

How do gods reproduce, and what determines what the kid looks like? Based on the birthing parent? A hybrid of the two? Completely unique? Does the new god design their own form? How fast do newborn gods reach maturity? Do gods only reproduce through spontaneous generation, like Frog-Crimes? Evidence thus far suggests that not all gods are collectives, but that doesn't mean individual gods can't come about in the same way.

I don't imagine we'll get answers to any of those OOC, but it's something to ask about IC next time we're speaking to a god.

also, for my sake, I'm interested in the "1 create+teach per suggestion per update" self-imposed rule. It's been getting hard to keep track of all the items you want me to have visible in every panel. but yeah I'm also getting super tired of keeping track of what you guys want regarding the post restrictions too... my computer's still not fixed and I'm gonna just buy a new one. look forward to my patreon, coming soon

We could do a strawpoll?