@Selerik

oh dude i actually forgot all about that

so, basically there are some bones from a monastery ans they have damage indicative of advanced syphilis and they're people who died before the colombian exchange which means there was syphilis in europe before ~The Great Pox~

the theory with it i think is that the ~The Great Pox~ one was native to the Americas and different enough that Europeans had just zero resistance to it and so you got, you know, this insane contagiousness and rapid onset and uh, dudes faces falling off during the siege of paris and then eventually it settled down to just making guy de maupassant think flies were eating his brain

Backed it when the Kickstart dropped.

@GamerNGeek said in Picking the community's brain...:

It also doesn't help that my first and main exposure to it has been through Arx (aka Firan: The Second Coming), which puts enough simulation game into my roleplay MU* to ruin it. This is guilt by association, and totally no fault of Ares, but I never claimed any of this was anything but emotional bias.

As Tinuviel pointed out, Arx uses Evennia, not Ares. Ares is far closer to Penn than Evennia, if for no other reason than my own sanity 🙂

Some things are just not possible in the architecture, but I'm always open to quality of life suggestions that are. For instance, it never occurred to me that you'd want to look at multiple characters at once, but it would be easy for me to add look Jack Jill Spot to the look command. Ares doesn't have 'ex me' (examine is only for coders) but you can get all your data via the backup command for logging to an offline backup. And so on.

But sure, if not having the ability to throw functions into think commands or making your own custom commands is a deal-breaker, then it's a deal-breaker. I can respect that!

Anyway, good luck finding a game.

@Ghost

buggs bunny

From what I gather of this thread on the OP Forums:

Clarity works like Health instead of Integrity in how it's tracked. Your Clarity track is equal to your Composure + Wits, and your first Touchstone goes at Composure + 1 from the left with extra's going to the right.

On the sheet, for space I guess, the Touchstone section is placed vertically. In this case up is left, and down is right.

So if you have Composure 3/Wits 3 and bought two extra Touchstones:

You have 6 Clarity boxes.

Ignore 7 - 11 on the Touchstone list.

Your first Touchstone goes on the 3 spot (Composure + 1 = 4, so it's the fourth slot down), the second on the 2 spot, and the third on the 1 spot.

If you take 4 severe Clarity damage, your first Touchstone becomes detached until you can heal the damage.

If you buy Composure 4, stop ignoring the 7 slot, but it remains blank. It just means it takes 5 severe Clarity damage before you detach on.

If you buy Wits 4 instead, shift everyone up one, so the 7 slot matters now, but your first Touchstones moves to 4, and you now have a blank spot at 1 (which you could fill with another Touchstone). 4 severe Clarity damage with still detach your first one.

So, the more Composure you have, the more severe Clarity damage you can take before Touchstones become threatened. The more Wits you have, the more Touchstones you can manage at once.

I have been lucky enough to enjoy a lot of very deeply satisfying and vibrant historical setting RP (including a lot of the not so nice aspects and tensions). But I will be honest. Whether that was in flashbacks OR in a historical themed mush, it's always been with a smaller playgroup or even one other person who enjoyed engaging on that level and had a similar desire for the level of "accuracy" or research or whatnot. I have NEVER found that "in general" on a historical place. I think that is okay, and if you want to play on a historical place like it or not you are going to have to be able to tolerate some deviation from your desired levels of things. Just like if you want to be super involved in a sphere or faction PROBABLY (not always) you're going to have to engage in specialized BaRP that may be amazing some of the time, fun hopefully a majority of the time, and downright painful much of the time as you rub elbows with people you don't know/aren't your preferred type. But if you are able to be tolerant during the BaRP esp. if you are new and without contacts, eventually you'll find hopefully 1 or 2 people that you can engage more fully with.

I would be glad if it was a case of 'a handful of times in the life of a game' vs. the more typical 'about once a month or so', with the especially messed up environments being 'a handful of times a month'. (Which is way, way better than a dozen years or so ago, when the problems would crop up multiple times per week with nary a hint of resolution in sight.)

'This shit is not OK' seems to be making positive headway in the ways that count: staff being a lot more likely to get rid of these people, people being willing to say something, and a more public understanding that this kind of thing is gross to try to force on people in the first place.

@Seraphim73 True, though I don't think anyone wants to lose either. The statement applies just as much to GM characters as it does PC's; and while the GM does have a story to tell, they also need to keep in mind that they're dealing with real live players - and they need to plan for the fact that the players won't stick to a script and may, in fact, outsmart or outfight the bad guy du jour.
More than failure, though, what I (and a number of folks who have talked to me over the years regarding scenes where this was a factor) find more egregious is the sense of wasting our time. This isn't the same as failure or not accomplishing something; but rather a point where you end the scene in no different a position than where you began. Most often this seems to happen when the big foozle is either somehow untouchable despite everything the players try, or has some equally mysterious trap door to escape at the last minute that the players had no way of detecting or stopping; but there are other non-combat related instances that I've seen it come up, too. Failure might irk people in the immediate sense, but getting a feeling that you're inconsequential or that the GM has a story to tell and will tell it regardless of what the players do or where the dice lead usually means people will just stop showing up for scenes. In my experience, most scenes (especially in things like Mage or Werewolf) involve a lot of time and effort beyond the few hours devoted to the scene itself. People do a lot of pre-planning and preparation; be it setting up spells, acquiring/creating items, researching the area or target, or what have you. That can span days, or even weeks, before the scene itself happens - and having all of that lead up to nothing leaves the players with both a sense of failure and that none of it really mattered; which does tend to get frustrating.
This goes back to what I was saying up there about 'failing forward' (A term I first saw used in WH40k: Wrath and Glory - which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite underdog games and is one of the best RPG representations of the settings I've seen), where everything is focused not on success or failure, but on advancing the plot; and it applies to both the GM and the players. If the players succeed, the GM needs to have a contingency in play that can continue their story without removing the feeling of success that the players might have. Even if they fail in the overall goal, though, the players still do need to get a sense of some kind of accomplishment; and it's up to the GM to work unexpected actions on the players part into the plot without removing the sense that the players can actually affect the world around them.
As an example, something that happens fairly often in WoD games - a murder plot. Scenario is that there's been a lot of ritual-style killings around town; bodies flayed, arcane or obscene symbols drawn in blood, the whole nine yards. To break it down in WoD terms, the individual sessions would be players investigating these murders, piecing together clues, building a profile. The GM's job here is to dangle enough carrots for them to keep up the investigation, while not letting them have the whole fruit basket in a single session.
From there the Chapter ends with them finding out who the killer is, where they lair and - if supernatural - what their habits and vulnerabilities might be. They close in, engage and fight the guy. Fight could go one of two ways; the dice are not with them or they didn't take everything in to account and the foozle whomps them. They take some losses but, if they're smart, manage to pull back and extricate. Even by losing, though, they've found out some valuable information on the foozle - more about his capabilities, or that their initial assessment of what he was was wrong, or maybe someone recognized something in their lair that led to a different line of investigating.
On the other hand, they could win.
And if they win, yaay. They won. However, when they loot the corpse they discover that the foozle kept a scrapbook, and in that book are newspaper clippings of similar murders going back hundreds of years - and some more recent ones that happened in other locations at exactly the same time that the ones the players had been investigating. Or maybe a few days after the fight, a player catches a news report that the killings are still going on. Maybe the foozle can be in multiple places at once. Maybe he's back from the dead. Or, maybe, he's part of a larger cult; or just a patsy for a greater evil. Maybe that foozle was completely inconsequential and the real killer is still out there. Either way, the players might have succeeded in their stated goal (kill foozle), but ultimately the scene failed in it's objective (stop the murders); while still allowing a way forward to further chapters to find out about and, ultimately, confront whoever/whatever's really in charge.

Losing the fight still allowed the players to accomplish something; while winning it didn't put an end to the killings, even though the players preparation and dice paid off.

After New Dawn I've been in a post-apoc mood so will check this out asap.

@krmbm said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:

Write with your enjoyment in mind.

This post does not have enough upvote buttons, so I'm quoting it again. Here, let me do it again, with a bit more emphasis:

@krmbm said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:

Write with your enjoyment in mind.

This is a hobby. The point of a hobby is to do things you enjoy.

Of course you know this (you @Cupcake) else you wouldn't be saying, "I'm not enjoying myself; please help." But this could probably be Rule #1. (late edit: Rule #0 is: "RL Comes First." I will go to my grave saying this.)

There is only one person you can make happy. There is only one person whose responses you can control. You.

Doing things for others can be poisonous for your well-being, but if you work with the foundation of what Krmbm said then you should be fine.

WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE!

I finally got this, so I figured I'd share it here.

First I went through httpd.conf and changed every instance of AllowOverride to All

Then I did this...

getenforce
setenforce 0
sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

I added the below under DocumentRoot in my virtual host config in sites-available:

<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/YOURDOMAIN.COM/public_html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

I rebooted the httpd.service again using the systemctl above.

Then I did my .htaccess in my public_html folder, and used this.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^wiki/(.)$ mw/index.php?title=$1 [PT,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^wiki/$ mw/index.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^wiki$ mw/index.php [L,QSA]

In LocalSettings.php, I added these under wgscriptpath:

$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";
$wgUsePathInfo= true;

It worked perfectly to redirect /mw/ to /wiki/.

I also used another setting to make the core .com redirect in the .htaccess as well, just putting this under the info above..

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /mw/$1 [L]

It's working perfectly now.

I do very much like the new systems, but I get what you're saying. I'm hoping that I can get around to STing it sometime soon. I had an idea I'd really love to try out, and keep mulling over things.

@Arkandel I've never really had a situation where there was an option to compare RL/online with the same group, we do it online because we're all far-flung (hence the keeping in touch component in general). But if I had to guess, I'd say it's easier and that's going to make up for any lack of pizza related draw.

Adding to what @Jeshin said: Obviously, the engagement is different. Online plays slower, and you'll never quite have the feeling of all being at the table together constantly cross-talking or fiddling with the map together etc. But if you're talking about people who would be hard to schedule otherwise, it may actually kind of be an advantage?

If a person has to field a work email on their phone, that's a fairly big interruption in person. Online you won't notice. And family wise, yeah, they will be in the background disrupting. But? We have one new parent in our group. As of 2 weeks ago, we have another soon-to-be. The first time, we joked we'd never see the guy again. In fact? He missed 1, maybe 2 sessions and was back at it. Committing to be out of the house for 4-6 hours leaving the other parent alone is a huge difference to setting aside that time (minus travel) to be at the computer but able to get up and lend a hand.

Basically, yes, there will be distractions but I kind of think it's a strength, in a way. Just make sure you set basic guidelines so people know what pace of play is expected and can judge when they'll be too busy to keep up.

@Ominous said in Running Wilderness Adventures:

Anyone have some suggestions on how to marry the exploration and resource management of OSR D&D and the narrative focus of most MU*a?

Most Mu's are not ready to handle random exploration and resource management, travel oriented or not. If they are, they already have some +scavange/search/explore code that runs, lets PC's know what they turn up. Most do not have great loss/gain opportunities, of that which I'm aware at least. I'm might scavenge some bullets on an apocalyptic Mu' that doesn't track bullet consumption, but the chance of stumbling upon an operational nuclear power plant (or stumble on the adventure to recover one/take one over from outland bandits and roadwarriors) is usually zero because they don't allow the chance to just find that.

Not to argue tight meta control vs. world reaction to what players are doing as what Staff should/shouldn't be doing. However, most places generally are set up with indicators how, why and to whom one should work with/on/for in creating a TP in the environment. Most seem open to small scale things that do not tip balance and only want more opportunity for wider player-base and thus why they ask for TP. To help promote it and/or direct inquiries related to said TP to the player runner/storyteller. Again, if a MU* doesn't have it or has it for other control reasons, I'm not making the argument either way as that's not the intent of the question from my perspective.

All that said, I would measure the necessity to all players involved in the story of running an Oregon Trail overland haul to get to X location, and/or return. If pausing a day to fix the wagon wheel causes a food shortage and they need to hunt, is the resource management necessary or just a story driver. If its a story driver and there is no need to work with staff to assure any loot from the hunting adventure is allowed or whatever ... have at it, so long as the players are all on board.

That's what I wanted to get at, introduce encounters as 'x happened, you are low on y resources' for them to consider their next step. You can set it up at the beginning, you have X supplies to make the trip to Y and back, you have enough space to house it all in your wagons/cars/caravan/space ship. They know up front that this could be important. Thus you can plant other encounters into your table - meet gypsies, meet space ghosts, find shipwreck, whatever. And they have their counter of supplies to think about. They can trade with gypsies, get location of actual stuff from ghosts they communicate with, or scavenge the shipwreck looking for what they need, etc.

Going back to the bolded stuff above, is travel time required or necessary on said Mu? This goes into are players on board, will they think they're missing out on events back in the main locations by being on the Oregon Trail? Is handwaving the recommended form of distances between locations? Then just make sure players are on board.

And as much as I enjoy random encounter tables, set up by environment/location/population density/whatever, do the players involved enjoy them? If it was me, and I was in some plot with another player to travel two weeks to remove location, do the thing, then come back and I knew we would off-grid for that time (required by the MU* or the storyteller), I think it might be just as beneficial/fun to handwave going/coming back and focus the time 'off-grid' on all adventure and story for whatever we're doing at the location too.

Then again, random encounters could be fun, so long as its not 'your stuck in scene for four hours discussing how to fix the real axle' then waiting for players to realize 'we need to discuss ditching the wagon and loosing a week of supplies, hopefully recover that to get back home after we get to River Dale, or take a day out and have to hunt now for food to even reach River Dale, or sending scouts ahead'. The later could be fun yes, but if players don't realize that's the intent of the broken axle random encounter either due to culture on the MU' in question or unrealized expectations from storyteller, it could go south just the same.

Spammy, but all that said, if everyone is on board, do what others are suggesting as they're all good stuff. Pick a system that already does this they way you like and adapt it to the MU' you are on, just let folks know what to expect so they don't feel rail-roaded into something they didn't realize they're signing up for.

Edited to remove asterisks and fix italicized words.

I am not playing anywhere at all right now and have not been for a while. I am looking at jumping into The Stack but am currently in a stressed limbo status where I am about to move and start a new job so I have no idea what my schedule is going to look like in a month's time.

So I play computer games if I have a free evening instead.

@moth said in Character Workshop: Share your resources:

Names: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

I love Fantasy Name Generators, because you can pick by RL ethnicity, or by Star Wars race, or by... well, a whole lot of criteria.

I recently found this list of hobbies/pastimes that is useful for background skills/character flavor:
http://jillwilliamson.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Character-Hobbies-and-Skills-Brainstorming-List.pdf

@Ganymede said in Changeling the Lost and/or Hunter the Vigil games?:

Not really, unless you’re trying to catch Enid Schmitt’s eye.

I had so much fun trying to do this with my Motley.

@tinuviel

happy wolf

Been using mushclient for almost 20 years now and its got pretty much everything. Colors, spawns, clickable https links, force create links if it didn't populate correctly. I think the spawn nestings are garbage (they just come up as notepad windows inside the client and you use ctrl+1 if it is world one or ctrl+2 etc to cycle thru main window and spawn windows), it has a simplistic scripting language that made learning macro coding fairly easy and there is a MUD named CLOK that I was able to fully automate two different professions using triggers/macros, and a single macro would switch my character between the two professions (and yes this is legal in that game, but you can't be afk so if an admin gets ahold of you and you dont respond within a few minutes you getsa temp ban)