@Ominous said in Hiring a Storyteller:

I got a feeling the OP meant they want someone to build and desc the grid then run plots once it is open, not a coder.

It does say "Hiring a Storyteller" right in the title. The OP said they were already doing all the coding.

Posters could also take a hint and not garbage up every thread with images.

I found them obnoxious ever since the trend started. Then the gifs started slowing my browser down to a crawl, and I said fuck it, and blocked them entirely.

If you have to post images, consider that it will have more effect if it's sparsely used. These trends become annoying when they start suffocating everything else.

Regarding weight loss, I found a few things useful.

Well, the first thing is that dieting doesn't work for me. Oh, it does work initially. I lose all the weight and I get a psychological boost from it, and then carefully start reintroducing normal food into my diet... And the weight gets back, plus more. My body gets into starvation mode, my metabolism slows the fuck down to conserve energy, and everything gets stored into fat, because the body goes "who knows when we're gonna have food next!"

So I did several rounds of yo-yo dieting and then stopped in horror because I ended up with more weight than I started with.

There were three articles that changed my approach: that stuff about the reality show "The Biggest Loser" - they followed up with contestants after 6 years, all but one have regained all the weight lost, and their metabolism was significantly slower even after all those years. So they have to eat less than a normal person would, just to keep at a current weight. They doomed themselves to a lifetime of not being able to have a balanced relationship with food.

Secondly, there was an article that detailed how it takes a year for the body to get used to a new lower weight. For a whole year, the body has an imperative to gain the weight back, through hormones and metabolic changes.

And thirdly, this one: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/. The gist is, focus on gaining strength, not losing weight. Focus on building up dense muscle by low-repetition but strenuous weight lifting, and not cardio as is usually advised. This raises the basal metabolic rate and melts the fat, as such muscles spend more energy just by existing.

So I get angry when people say it's easy to lose weight, just eat less and move more. If only our bodies weren't intricate complex biochemical systems with various evolutionary purposes, maybe that simplistic maxim would work. Everyone looks at you like an idiot with self-control problems if you try to dispute this "simple solution."

Basically the solution is, eat decently so you can move lift more. Then eat even more, so you can lift even more. Of course, this still means you gotta eat healthy stuff and not stuff yourself with sodas and snacks. I just wish I knew all this ten years ago, long before I tried low-carb dieting the first time. I also have some good experiences with intermittent fasting, as long as it doesn't go into deprivation/starvation mode.

I don't mind bar RP.
It's good to get to know people.
It's good downtime for characters.
It sucks if it's the only RP in the game.

I suppose that's why Haunted Memories was such an unsuccessful niche game that didn't attract any players.

Or why RfK didn't attract so many players that it imploded.

Fuck trying anything new, right? Where's the next smalltown Maine or Las Vegas game? Come on, read me the same story again mom.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

...What?

Do I have to spell it out? It's tedious and I didn't think people are that dumb, but okay.

If a game is advertised as a sandbox (directly or indirectly), there is no sense in asking staff for any sort of help in "making your own fun." Which is the case with most games, ever since people concluded metaplots/staff-run plots shouldn't be a thing anymore.

If the game is advertised as "make your own fun" then the staff is just janitors. They won't support story or help you affect the world. In fact, they will do their best to get rid of you, unless you're their close friend. Maybe they'll approve your PrP once they make sure you won't do anything too creative or fun.

So the game becomes fractured into sandboxes of separate groups of people, instead of a shared world. What one group does to affect the world doesn't propagate to the other groups. Therefore, trying to affect the world feels pointless, which makes it feel pointless to play.

This is particularly acute when we talk about vampire spheres. In a sandbox, there's absolutely nothing to support their theme - political, occult, whatever you choose. Not in a way that propagates their actions to the rest of the game. The really dumb thing is that there are functional systems for more than just social play, in those LARP-oriented books. You wouldn't even have to reinvent the wheel, just apply it. There's a reason why they wrote those for settings with lots of people, unlike a small tabletop group. Because vampire doesn't work otherwise.

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements

I don't think you know what I was complaining about, no. I can with absolute authority say that "do something different" is easy to say but hard to assure, especially if players are going to default to the same ol' same ol'. I've seen many games use that default as the basis for their systems, which makes sense to me, but saying, doing, and succeeding are three widely different things.

RfK. Arx. How come players haven't defaulted to bar RP there? Cause they have shit to do!

You were complaining that players always ask for the same old thing, which rubbed me wrong because I've spoken out time and again that I want something different. Not only I, but other players have obviously spoken with their feet, flocking to the games that aren't the same old thing. (If you're wondering about my adversarial and aggressive tone, this sums up why.)

So fuck your absolute authority. Arx. RfK. Two examples that clearly speak differently.

Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

... What? Darkwater: Engaging. Fate's Harvest: Engaging. Some people find
Reno engaging.

Yes, some people. Meanwhile RfK died under the avalanche of interested players. Meanwhile, there's ~400 people on Arx. Let's not wonder why and what the difference might be.

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them, and there's more variety of settings and themes to choose from? Instead of having RfK implode from too many players, or Arx losing staffers because they just don't enjoy a game with such a huge population.

Wouldn't that be a better thing for MUSHdom?

So I'm wondering what conversation you think I'm having, but I don't think it's the same conversation that you're having.

That just means you didn't even consider what I've written. It doesn't fit what you already know, so you dismiss it.

I could simply not understand the conversation you're having, but as of now I don't find it engaging and so I'm disengaging.

Keep doing what you're doing (again, general you), I'm sure players avoid those games for totally silly, stupid reasons.

By no means bother to listen to a different perspective.

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them

That's not how that works. We're people, not datapoints you can shift around.

It works by offering different themes so that people don't have to shoehorn themselves into Arx if they don't enjoy lords and ladies (or they enjoy something else more). Obviously, the redistribution of players would happen organically through people's different interests.

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade There are plenty of games that aren't Arx.

Do they also have ~400 players (aside from sex mushes)? Why not? Are they imploding because of too many players being interested?

It might be nice to have multiple games, but with skilled and interested coders and weavers of story dropping out of the hobby like flies owing to reality stepping in, it's not something we can really demand.

I'm one of those who left and I'm saying why, instead of just disappearing and not bothering. Might be good to listen, if you don't want to keep playing with the same dwindling, incestuous circle of people.

This is Mildly Constructive, and you're acting like a petulant child. "I demand this, I want that." You've offered your ideas, and others have disagreed with you, or asked for further explanation. Present your ideas without getting defensive and abrasive and you may be taken more seriously.

Frankly, I've mostly given up on mushes and mushers, because this same problem has persisted through the hobby over almost a decade. So I simply don't care anymore - listen or don't. I vented my frustration, with some fairly constructive advice and a different perspective. If truly nobody shares my frustration, then that's pretty sad.

At some point in time before Haunted Memories, I staffed and helped create a lords and ladies game, as a complete newbie. This was my second mush ever. As most of the staff was new, we tried hard to be inclusive and not jaded, but we had absolutely no idea how to make our game functionally fun. In essence, we had created a sandbox for the theme, and it always bothered me and I kept feeling like I failed the game.

If I managed to figure this out almost a decade ago, as a total newbie, then what the hell is wrong here? How many new players try out mushes and just leave, for the same reasons?

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@surreality Also RfK collapsed under the weight of it's owners ego and self-delusion in a cult of personality.

Them grapes are mightily sour, m'lord. No, it collapsed when the owner got overwhelmed by the workload and disappeared.

I've made my points, you can choose to ignore them but player interest will show what's true.

I've made my points, you can choose to ignore them but player interest will show what's true.

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@surreality Also RfK collapsed under the weight of it's owners ego and self-delusion in a cult of personality.

Them grapes are mightily sour, m'lord. No, it collapsed when the owner got overwhelmed by the workload and disappeared.

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade There are plenty of games that aren't Arx.

Do they also have ~400 players (aside from sex mushes)? Why not? Are they imploding because of too many players being interested?

It might be nice to have multiple games, but with skilled and interested coders and weavers of story dropping out of the hobby like flies owing to reality stepping in, it's not something we can really demand.

I'm one of those who left and I'm saying why, instead of just disappearing and not bothering. Might be good to listen, if you don't want to keep playing with the same dwindling, incestuous circle of people.

This is Mildly Constructive, and you're acting like a petulant child. "I demand this, I want that." You've offered your ideas, and others have disagreed with you, or asked for further explanation. Present your ideas without getting defensive and abrasive and you may be taken more seriously.

Frankly, I've mostly given up on mushes and mushers, because this same problem has persisted through the hobby over almost a decade. So I simply don't care anymore - listen or don't. I vented my frustration, with some fairly constructive advice and a different perspective. If truly nobody shares my frustration, then that's pretty sad.

At some point in time before Haunted Memories, I staffed and helped create a lords and ladies game, as a complete newbie. This was my second mush ever. As most of the staff was new, we tried hard to be inclusive and not jaded, but we had absolutely no idea how to make our game functionally fun. In essence, we had created a sandbox for the theme, and it always bothered me and I kept feeling like I failed the game.

If I managed to figure this out almost a decade ago, as a total newbie, then what the hell is wrong here? How many new players try out mushes and just leave, for the same reasons?

@tinuviel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them

That's not how that works. We're people, not datapoints you can shift around.

It works by offering different themes so that people don't have to shoehorn themselves into Arx if they don't enjoy lords and ladies (or they enjoy something else more). Obviously, the redistribution of players would happen organically through people's different interests.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

...What?

Do I have to spell it out? It's tedious and I didn't think people are that dumb, but okay.

If a game is advertised as a sandbox (directly or indirectly), there is no sense in asking staff for any sort of help in "making your own fun." Which is the case with most games, ever since people concluded metaplots/staff-run plots shouldn't be a thing anymore.

If the game is advertised as "make your own fun" then the staff is just janitors. They won't support story or help you affect the world. In fact, they will do their best to get rid of you, unless you're their close friend. Maybe they'll approve your PrP once they make sure you won't do anything too creative or fun.

So the game becomes fractured into sandboxes of separate groups of people, instead of a shared world. What one group does to affect the world doesn't propagate to the other groups. Therefore, trying to affect the world feels pointless, which makes it feel pointless to play.

This is particularly acute when we talk about vampire spheres. In a sandbox, there's absolutely nothing to support their theme - political, occult, whatever you choose. Not in a way that propagates their actions to the rest of the game. The really dumb thing is that there are functional systems for more than just social play, in those LARP-oriented books. You wouldn't even have to reinvent the wheel, just apply it. There's a reason why they wrote those for settings with lots of people, unlike a small tabletop group. Because vampire doesn't work otherwise.

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements

I don't think you know what I was complaining about, no. I can with absolute authority say that "do something different" is easy to say but hard to assure, especially if players are going to default to the same ol' same ol'. I've seen many games use that default as the basis for their systems, which makes sense to me, but saying, doing, and succeeding are three widely different things.

RfK. Arx. How come players haven't defaulted to bar RP there? Cause they have shit to do!

You were complaining that players always ask for the same old thing, which rubbed me wrong because I've spoken out time and again that I want something different. Not only I, but other players have obviously spoken with their feet, flocking to the games that aren't the same old thing. (If you're wondering about my adversarial and aggressive tone, this sums up why.)

So fuck your absolute authority. Arx. RfK. Two examples that clearly speak differently.

Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

... What? Darkwater: Engaging. Fate's Harvest: Engaging. Some people find
Reno engaging.

Yes, some people. Meanwhile RfK died under the avalanche of interested players. Meanwhile, there's ~400 people on Arx. Let's not wonder why and what the difference might be.

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them, and there's more variety of settings and themes to choose from? Instead of having RfK implode from too many players, or Arx losing staffers because they just don't enjoy a game with such a huge population.

Wouldn't that be a better thing for MUSHdom?

So I'm wondering what conversation you think I'm having, but I don't think it's the same conversation that you're having.

That just means you didn't even consider what I've written. It doesn't fit what you already know, so you dismiss it.

I could simply not understand the conversation you're having, but as of now I don't find it engaging and so I'm disengaging.

Keep doing what you're doing (again, general you), I'm sure players avoid those games for totally silly, stupid reasons.

By no means bother to listen to a different perspective.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If the setting doesn’t engage, then why even log in?

I don't. I haven't in a long time.

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

The tools make this easier, and thus more time effective, and thus more likely to be followed though, but it starts with someone saying “yes”. After that, I’m free.

Staff needs to be actively engaged in making their game fun, and needs to have tools that allow both players and staff to achieve that.

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements. Let me guess, you've only ever made them as social games, without any tools that would help them be otherwise? So why are you full of yourself, complaining about it? Make a different goddamn game.

Mind you, I appreciate the hard work anyone puts into making games (I certainly have nothing against you personally), but it's time this attitude was kicked to the curb. Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

@calindra said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade Find another game that enables you to do all these things with the right tools.

That's the point, games should be made with that in mind.

What are you going to scene about if the setting is boring (without inherent conflict), and the game gives you no tools for affecting the setting and other players in a meaningful, productive way?

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

But if all people want to play are Social MU*s with RPG elements, then why bother making anything else?

Why would a WoD mush have to be a social one? RfK was political, with tons of risk-like minigames to play. That was a success - the main thing it lacked was a hard population limit. At 30 characters it would've thrived beautifully, and it was exactly what was missing in mushdom. The answer is/was right under your nose.

Since Arx has about 400 players or something, I would say it is also what mushdom was missing. Look at what players love and flock to, then do it well.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Why shouldn't I keep making WoD games until the end of time?

You wouldn't have to keep making them if you make a good one. In order to do that, it would help to check what the previous ones have been missing. Have your cake and eat it.