Hi,

I've been RPing a couple years now. I'm still relatively new compared to many of the other RPers, but I feel I make up for it by being a natural. Yeah, that might come across as conceited, but the evidence supports that statement. I'm certainly not saying I'm the greatest RPer of all time or anything at all like that, but I've been pretty decent at it from the start, had people asking if it was really my first time the very first RP I did, because they said I didn't RP like a newb. Still, I think I got a crash course in how mean people can be to the unsuspecting new player, even with my guise as an apparant experienced one. I also think that if people had understood where I was coming from at the very beginning and what was really going on in my noggin, that such regrettable occurances could have been avoided and I would not still be plagued by little twinges of concern and wariness even to this day. Of course, there is a bit of an up side to what I experienced, because it has made me all the more staunchly defendant of anything like that happening to anyone else, at least as far as I have power to do something about it.

I created the circumstances where I really would have the power to protect others by making my own darn chat. At least half of the rules of Bettenchi were created with the mind of avoiding some of the problems I encountered, to protect players from the heartache and aggrivations that I went through. So much trouble for what is just a game, yes, I know, but I tend to think we all like fairness, that we all feel bad when a game is not fair to us. If this is supposed to be fun to play, shouldn't it also be fair? If it is not fair, than it is only fun to a few, those that gain the upper hand, but even they lose out on fun as those that get the shaft end up trickling away disgruntled, leaving those with the upper hand with no one to RP with. So, to me, it makes sense to put in the little extra effort to make what is just a game as fair as possible. Every game has rules. Role play, to me, needs more detailed rules than a simple game of tic tac toe or tag or hide and seek. Rules are not meant to squelsh RP, but are meant to free it up. It's so much easier to get into a game and run with it when you understand how that game works. Otherwise, if you have to guess too much, it puts a hamper on the enjoyment of it. I believe there is such thing as too many rules and not enough rules. Others may not agree, but I think Bettenchi has just the right number of rules to cover the most common potential injustices that might occur through the course of the game. The rules are there for player protection, to protect them from getting those bad feelings that kill the joy. I, as chatmaster, prefer to have them there as a reminder and guide and hope that players will see them as such and not force me to enforce them, but will use their overall theme and direction to avoid the need to enforce them. They are very "golden rule" oriented. I am very golden rule oriented. (Of course, the bigger reason for making the chat was that I had a dream of a really cool fantasy chat of this general style and theme, but the protecting players from injustice and having the power to do so was a close second in my motives)

Now, don't I just sound so noble and all that? Well, I'm not really. I know it. You don't need to go thinking, "Mann, she needs to be brought down a peg or two. She thinks way too highly of herself." Probably, the opposite is true. I don't think highly enough of myself. I don't think any of us think as highly of ourselves as we aught to. If we thought more highly of ourselves, it would be easier to treat others with the respect that we ourselves crave. If we all had a little more pride in ourselves, we would know how it only cheapens us to treat others with less respect than we would wish to be treated. I've had the opportunity to see first hand how cruel someone who does not think as highly of his/herself as he/she should can be. I've experienced pain from what is supposed to be a game. It doesn't matter how much a game impacts us, how seriously we take it; pain is still pain and we hurt when we are wronged. We also hurt when we wrong others, regardless of how into the game we may get and regardless of whether we realize it or not. If you've wronged someone, you can believe that you don't care, but you are only fooling yourself, too scared to look below your own surface.

So, how has Mab been hurt, you're curious, perhaps? Well, maybe if you understand how Mab is, then you'll be able to guess without much difficulty how Mab could have been hurt.

I am a 3D graphics artist and that is how I earn a living and what I do when I'm not spending time with my honey or with friends or RPing in chats like this one. Well, as a 3D artist, I don't think it's much of a stretch to understand how I can't resist making beautiful character images in my spare time for characters that I RP. As an artist, I naturally get very attached to my work and don't want to think of those beautiful characters as being damaged. So, it's a catch 22 in some ways. Here I make these gorgeous works of art for characters and naturally can't bear to have harm come to them and then I take them into chat scenerios where they are placed in danger from time to time. I'm craving the adventure and what not, yet, I don't want them to really come to permanent harm through the course of those close calls. Even I think it is unreasonable to expect people not to kill or maime my characters if story calls for it. However, I also believe that there is always a legitimate story reason that can be come up with not to. I hope for and desire this courtesy to be extended to me in such cases. I will never kill or mutilate/maime another person's character that isn't 100% okay with my doing so. I tend to think that that earns me the right to have the same courtesy extended to me. Some people don't agree, but I think that most of them don't realize just what all goes into the making of one of my characters, which I call my 3D dollies, and how much work it really is. Perhaps, if they did understand this and how I still can't resist making them anyway, then they would be more considerate and lenient with me in that regard. On average, a character that I've put a lot of thought into takes about a month from putting them together to rendering the image of them and then doing whatever photo shop touches come after. That's a lot of time just to create their first images. I become very intimately involved as I create them, getting emotional pleasure in the creation process. Is it any wonder that I'd be highly upset when some mean person decides to summarily do away with my character? Can it be considered truly "fun" for me by any stretch of the imagination to have that occur? And, isn't this game supposed to be fun? I'm not the type to build elaborate sand castles just to have them washed away by the tide. I won't even waste my time, because I wouldn't be able to stand witnessing my work's demise like that so soon after I constructed it. I'm the type that would take that sand with some adhesive solution and build a sand castle that was permanent. *LOL* I hope that people can better understand now where I'm coming from. It's not that I fear losing the game. You can take everything my character has away from them and I'll be able to deal with it, as long as it's not their life or general beauty, the beauty of the artwork I put into them and get very attached to. I just can't stand the thought.

Now, another thing, I have a serious phoebia and issue with beheading and dismemberment. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the artwork thing that I described above, but can in some cases if I'm facing a real meanie player's character. This is another little issue that runs around in my noggin. I don't know why it disturbs me to the level it does, but it really does. I can deal with some random character that isn't a pretty damsel having it happen to, but I relate somehow too much when it's a pretty chic. Do I think I'm a pretty chic? Maybe. *shifty eyes* At any rate, it disturbs me greatly and can traumatize me. I've talked around and discovered I'm not the only one. So, please, be considerate of tender feelings in that regard. I know, weird, but this shuddering phoebia runs very deep with me and with some others as well. You shouldn't make it your quest to help us tender hearts get a tougher shell or become desensitized. You'll likely just end up traumatizing us instead. So get that stupid notion out of your head right now. heh.

It's my love of beauty that prompts these feelings. I hope that others don't find that something to be scoffed at and scorned just because it causes me not to want to get down and dirty and more realistic. Realism is fine, to a point, but this is a fantasy game. We're all here to play out fantasies. My fantasies don't include my characters getting killed or mutilated, facing and escaping danger, yes, but not actually killed or mutilated.

I am, I think, a very honest person. Can I claim to have never, ever done anything dishonest or have never ever told a lie? No, but I can claim to have had those occurances be extremely few and far between and highly regretted to this day. I'm a bit of a scatter brain sometimes, so I may be dishonest by accident, but that's not the same thing. That's a technical error, not an active attempt to deceive. I just don't run around lying and not being straight with people. Why am I proclaiming my honesty? Well, obviously, I had an occurance or two with RP in the past where, if the other party had known this about me, it could have spared me and that person or persons some pain and/or aggrivation. So, please, don't assume me a liar, just because there are so many in the world, and treat me with the respect an honest person deserves. I can pretty much garantee that if you think I'm being deliberately dishonest, I'm not and that it is likely the result of a miscommunication, misconception or misunderstanding. I just don't have enough concern with "winning the game" to even be tempted to be dishonest about it. I simply want to be treated fairly and have my feelings taken into consideration.

Fairness. People will tell me that it is an impossible dream and that I'm deluding myself to even think an RP chat could be more fair than they have been. I disagree. Life is not fair. Yes, I know. I know very well, thankyouverymuch. It's impossible to make one of these chats perfectly fair. Yes, yes, I know this too. Is that any excuse for us not to try and do our best to make it as fair as we humanly can? I think not. I think there is no good excuse to just throw fairness out the window as a trivial concern. It cheapens any establishment, whether it be RP chat or an olympic event, if fairness is not strived for actively. Justice is cold, blind and no respector of persons. I don't think we necessarily want to go that far with something that is supposed to be a fun game that makes people happy. Do you? Fairness, to me, is different. Fairness allows for the taking of people's feelings into consideration as well. So, be fair to your fellow men and women and don't be surprised when I insist upon it in Bettenchi.

So now, if you've read all this, you have a better idea of what is going on in Mab's noggin in regards to RP and where she is coming from. I hope that anyone reading this will treat me as I wish to be treated and I will do my very best to do the same for you. I also hope you will treat others with similar consideration, as you come to understand what makes them tick a little better.

Warm Regards,

Mab

*passes out hankies*