I'm assuming the answer is "yes, you idiot," but I'm not certain. I'm trying something along these lines, because a lot of my friends want to RP but don't really know what platform to use. Any advice on what to do and what to avoid doing?
@Rinel Yes. You tell them to connect to play.arxmush.org via port 3000.
@Rinel A small sandbox that's just for you and your friends can be great fun. Ares can be a great game-in-a-box for this.
That's actually what I'm setting up--I was wondering if anyone had experience with doing that sort of small sandbox.
@Bananerz said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
@Rinel Yes. You tell them to connect to play.arxmush.org via port 3000.
They're afraid of Arx.
I have, yes, and I've been on a few. The main issue with a friend-sandbox MU server is that you have neither the forced regularity of a TTRPG game ("We meet every Friday at Bob's house") nor the open-world nature of a traditional MUSH (where RP is readily available), nor the "toss out a pose when you can" nature of play-by-forum. It gets hard for folks to find RP and then things peter out. They've never lasted long.
That said, it's easy enough to spin up a server and give it a try.
@faraday said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
nor the "toss out a pose when you can" nature of play-by-forum.
Hmm. Couldn't this be alleviated by using Ares?
...she asked the creator of Ares.
I'm on a sandboxy style Ares setup right now and we aren't quite forum slow but I have found that the existence of the portal does make engagement easier despite the lack of much formal scheduling. So yeah, kinda!
One warning I'd have really is that if you're going to sandbox is that if you want to make sure everyone is on the same page about what that means. Like, are you telling a story together with an overarching plot, are you interacting in a shared universe, are you just using the shared space to do whatever -- all of these are fine, but it's good for everyone to be on the same page about it because otherwise you can end up with weird drama and there's no staff to intervene because... it's a sandbox between friendos.
@Rinel From a technical standpoint, absolutely. But that slower style of play is a hard sell to many MUSHers. If all your scenes end up taking days or weeks and revolving around a central narrative (since there's only so much you can do with a handful of people), then you might be better off with Storium or Roll20 or something.
@faraday
Well, I already gave DigitalOcean my money, so I'm stuck for now!
But Storium seems interesting!
@saosmash said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
One warning I'd have really is that if you're going to sandbox is that if you want to make sure everyone is on the same page about what that means. Like, are you telling a story together with an overarching plot, are you interacting in a shared universe, are you just using the shared space to do whatever -- all of these are fine, but it's good for everyone to be on the same page about it because otherwise you can end up with weird drama and there's no staff to intervene because... it's a sandbox between friendos.
Thanks. This is sound advice.
I sort of did this when I was testing out HSpace 5 stuff, back when the developer was actually active and junk. Not that any RP happened, cause it was more in the 'figure out how to make the space stuff work' stage than 'do RP' stage.
@Rinel said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
Well, I already gave DigitalOcean my money, so I'm stuck for now!
Oh I'm not suggesting that you not do it, just advising of potential pitfalls based on my experience. If you can get RP schedules aligned, and/or set up "event/plot" times for folks to shoot for, and/or use async scenes, etc. - it could work. A lot of it comes down to how determined the players are to overcoming the inherent obstacles.
We have people that have used Evennia to run tabletop RPG sessions for their remote friends. There is also a tutorial for how one could set it up.
@faraday said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
I have, yes, and I've been on a few. The main issue with a friend-sandbox MU server is that you have neither the forced regularity of a TTRPG game ("We meet every Friday at Bob's house") nor the open-world nature of a traditional MUSH (where RP is readily available), nor the "toss out a pose when you can" nature of play-by-forum. It gets hard for folks to find RP and then things peter out. They've never lasted long.
That said, it's easy enough to spin up a server and give it a try.
One could always go the Spirit Lake route and open the server up for a limited number of outside players, so you still maintain the close-knit group a bit, while also adding enough of a playerbase to keep things closer to a traditional MU*
@Ominous The danger with this, of course, is making sure that those limited outside players don't feel like extras in a story that the close-knit group is telling. I know that Spirit Lake is working hard to counter this tendency, but it's definitely a tendency with the type of set-up that you're describing.
This is pretty much exclusively how I've played for the last year or so. A few friends were interested in MUing but were intimidated by joining existing games so I created a private server for us. We've since evolved to using Ares for the web functionality and we have great fun with it.
We tried this but ended up switching to Discord because there's really no point to maintaining a MUSH server just so 4-5 people can get together once or twice per week to RP.
I've done it, had lots of fun and success with it over the years. Don't any more, with my bff having passed away.
Best advice I can give you is: don't let people use it as a forum for venting about other games/roleplay/the hobby stuff in general. Put a requirement down that all 'public spaces' need to be neutral to positive, venting for private. Otherwise people will get into the habit and it's hard to reclaim the space once it happens.
ETA: What I ended up doing was to put some variation of 'this is not a space for venting' highlighted at the end of the desc of the main room folks hang out in when not playing stuff, then just a cheery reminder when it veers that way.
A long while back I wanted to set up a 'hub' MUSH that was exclusively for tabletop-style small groups. Separate groups of characters not designed to interact with each other but with +sheet and +roll functionality for ease of use. Each group would have access to private 'grids' exclusively for their use with a shared OOC hub that they could opt in or out of along with @channels.
Alas, the closest I ever got was almost getting an OTT group going on TR before the players splintered.
It is tough to gauge what the number of people or PC is that will sustain a mush feel/activity (which for me means enough people around for a mix of pick up RP and building their own relationships with each other, vs a more tabletop group meetup that is scheduled) while still remaining small enough for intimate staff/outside the group storytelling.
I have a pretty good idea arc of a metaplot story that I want to explore in a mush format instead of a tabletop, because I also like seeing what people come up for truly personal story arcs too and the ability to tie them into world developments is super exciting to me.
I am not real sure that I could handle more than 20ish PCs though, and I do not know if that would be enough to sustain a mush environment, realistically.
@mietze said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:
It is tough to gauge what the number of people or PC is that will sustain a mush feel/activity (which for me means enough people around for a mix of pick up RP and building their own relationships with each other, vs a more tabletop group meetup that is scheduled) while still remaining small enough for intimate staff/outside the group storytelling.
Obviously 'a group small enough for intimate storytelling' means different things to different people but to me it's this: The group size allows a single GM to be familiar with all of the PCs (since nearly everything that happens to or around them that GM is present for and controls), and they are the protagonists of their own campaign. The story revolves completely around them.
I'm assuming the answer is "yes, you idiot," but I'm not certain. I'm trying something along these lines, because a lot of my friends want to RP but don't really know what platform to use. Any advice on what to do and what to avoid doing?
