One of the issues I see all the time, on this board and on games, in myself and in others, is the dreaded FOMO. Feeling that you're not quite invited to the real party. You don't quite belong in the inner circle. Plot doesn't quite make it out to where you are. When things happen, they are over before you get to get involved. The same song on repeat from game to game -- there's an inner circle and then there's the rabble who never feel like they truly are included.

Please note: There are absolutely games where staff encourages an inner circle to close up and fuck the rest. Disregard those games for the purpose of this thread; I want to talk about games and game running where the intent (successful or not) is to include anyone who wants to be included.

It's something I keep in mind as a story runner, regardless of where I have been. How to make myself accessible to anyone who wants me; how to get wanted by others; how to signal that you're interested in doing things without signaling that you're a door mat.

People list lots of obstacles; from brain weasels to inconvenient time zones, from not being able to play every night, to lack of focus and too many old cliques and grudges. I don't want to discuss whether these issues are real -- they're all real to at least some of us.

What I want to discuss is ways that have WORKED -- when it comes to getting story to spread like ripples on a pond, reaching beyond the initial, most involved people and out to where everyone else are. How to make even very casual players feel like they can have a say if they want to. That if they remain uninvolved it's because this story does not interest them or they don't have time right now, but maybe the next one will and they will be welcomed if they jump into that one instead.

Making a game environment feel welcoming and inclusive is harder than it sounds like, and I'd love to swap stories of things that have worked at least some of the time for y'all. (We have plenty threads about when it doesn't work and everyone feels FOMO).

For me,

• Scheduling events up to three weeks in advance, and making it clear which kind of characters will be given preference. Not 'my buddies' but 'people with park ranger type skills'. A new player who doesn't know anyone has an 'in' there if they happen to have skills that fit the scene.

• Doing a fair number of open scenes in which recent happenings (from events) are talked about. Information is passed on to others in the form of gossip and small talk. Names and plot devices get wider distribution. You know it works when a couple of players go off to scene about something adjacent on their own.

• Keeping track of who ends up 'taking the reins' in events and scenes, scheduled and not. If it's always the same person, that person doesn't need special catering. The ones who are always there but don't get to say a lot, they're the ones I need to throw a little extra to -- they really want to be included but they're struggling.

• Not to be confused with the ones who turn up and act disinterested, drop out half way through, or feel like trying to push molasses uphill. They don't want to be there; don't waste precious energy on them that could go to the others who do want to be there.

• Rumours and gossip posts on a relevant forum: Give names and locations so that characters adjacent know who to ask and what to ask about. If you read on the forum that the building your office is in had a gas leak explosion, there's RP right there, talking to others in the same building about what the hell happened.

• Balancing different kinds of fun. You don't have much success with stark horror or epic adventure if there's never anything else. Mix and match genres. Include occasional slapstick. Black needs white, dark needs light. Audiences like different things.

• Which leads to, be clear what a scene is in advance. Is it comedic? Say so. Is it deep dark terror? Say it. Save others the frustration of being in something they don't like while others who do miss out instead.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm out of tea. For now.

Forgotten that just because characters are friends or lovers that doesn't mean that the player behind the screen is your friend (and obviously, not your lover either). I've allowed myself to get hurt a couple of times when I thought an OOC friendship had developed only to get dropped like a hot potato when the other player grew bored.

@Ganymede said in RL Sads:

Would you allow them to say this to their grandchildren?

And there's the perspective I needed. Thank you.

@kanye-qwest said in A healthy game culture:

Or my favorite, someone is upset they can't get included in something, and you find out the people who could include them just don't really want to play with them. Do you think you can/should force people to interact with other people?

Nope. No one should ever have to play with someone they do not enjoy playing with, and they should never have to justify it, either. It sucks to be left out but there is always the other option: Make your own thing happen and play it with the people who like you.

I know it's not realistic on all games, but I do think that sometimes, people sit back too much and expect to get a ticket to the season's entertainment. That's an attitude that sort of implies that there are people hired to create entertainment for you, and unless you're on a pay to play game, that's a mindset I'm wary of.

Which is obviously not to say that there aren't games and cliques on games that can be next to impossible to crack. But then the same kind of applies: Go somewhere else, do something else.

Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue has taken away my ability to draw and paint, a hobby which I was pretty big on.

This year, my family got together to buy me a Cintiq. I don't know if this will make me able to art again, but I really, really, really appreciate their attempt to restore something to me that I lost, and really miss.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

There are very few truly racially homogeneous places on Earth, and this isn't like some modern thing. People really have this fascination with medieval Europe being 100% white and anything to the contrary is SJW propaganda. Fuck actual history and art I guess lmao.

Amen, amen, and amen again, said the historian. POCs were definitely a thing in medieval Europe, and the only people claiming otherwise are white supremacists pushing an ideal all-white European age of glory that never existed.

I'm sure as heck in no rush to get to hold all the things together to create my own game but if I ever do? I have thought about basing one off the free town of Fredericia, Denmark -- which historically had freedom of religion and asylum for any crime committed anywhere else since 1650. The result was a Wild West-like chaotic border town-feel, with half a dozen religious denominations and factions struggling for survival, hitmen and kidnappers from elsewhere hunting wanted men who in turn dared not step outside the city gates, a large military garrison constantly feuding with local land owners, and a plethora of absolutely over the top personalities and stories -- and it's all very well documented.

Then add, oh, and by the way, the magic of folklore of superstition is real, shake, and bake.

Speaking as someone with a diagnosis or two of my own I tend to fall back on the adage that mental illness can be an explanation, but it is not an excuse.

@silverfox said in GMs and Players:

I feel like you can make a false accusation without being a bad actor.

If you are triggered by a specific behavior it is really hard to stay calm and in perspective.

I'd be enough of a semantics nitpicker to say that then that is not a fake accusation -- it's a mistake. And mistakes do indeed happen, but they're rarely deliberately malicious.

I'm seeing one point missing in this discussion: Writers like to relax too. I should know, I am one.

I will readily agree that writing scenes for a mush is not writing as in writing a novel, not even close, not even on the same planet. However, writing a novel is a very lonely job. You're entirely alone with your 60k-120k piece for the duration of writing it, editing it, editing it again, and only then can you start hoping for some kind of feedback from beta readers and editors if you have one. It may be literal years here, where you get nothing -- nothing -- socially out of writing.

No wonder, then, that you need to take breaks. Talk to people. Use your passion for words in interaction with actual real people.

Many writers use writing prompts in a social context. They subscribe to some blogger who tosses out a 200 word prompt every morning, and then discuss what they got out of it with other subscribers, or they join Facebook groups with similar purposes. All in order to challenge themselves, write something they wouldn't have written for their novel, get forced out of the familiar. And to talk to other people because did I mention that writing is a very, very lonely job?

To me, that's what mushing is. I love roleplaying games, always have -- but mushing draws me before more grinding-type games because they let me write together with other people. Get feedback. Talk about it in and out of character. Explore my own headspace and theirs. Learn new things.

So, if you ask me, this is very much a writers' thing. It's just important to differentiate between mushing because it's a fun and great exercise and social opportunity, and deluding yourself into thinking that your collaborative fan fiction somehow is the next New York Times bestseller. It's not. But practising and playing may you enable to write that bestseller, some day.

@silverfox said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@devrex said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@L-B-Heuschkel does a great job of GMing async and making it really fun and I'm not sure what his techniques are there or what he's doing differently that I'm not doing (or if he's just wired differently as a GM) but.

I think it's just that they HAVE TO DO IT or they'd never RP. You grow into whatever restraints you have to.

Bit of both.

I don't really have a choice, playing from Europe. But I've also come to enjoy that I can present people with quandaries that require more thought -- because they don't have to react at an instant.

I also have a hard rule that if someone doesn't pose for 24 hours I move the scene on -- unless they've let me know that something is up. Real life happens to people, after all.

Forgotten that just because characters are friends or lovers that doesn't mean that the player behind the screen is your friend (and obviously, not your lover either). I've allowed myself to get hurt a couple of times when I thought an OOC friendship had developed only to get dropped like a hot potato when the other player grew bored.

@seraphim73 said in Meshing Groups:

I also agree that @mietze's mention of being OOCly up-front and honest about the situation: "This is a scene to get all our characters connected." This will give the players incentive to connect the characters, and when they react to that thing you're doing as the GM that they all have to react to, they don't just react by fleeing the scene.

Or if they do -- well, if they joined the scene knowing its OOC purpose and then proceed to do the exact opposite, at least you have some basis for not making that player's meshing in a priority compared with the ones who are actively trying.

Echoing what Tinuviel said: Smaller groups. I list my events that people can sign up for as four seats only (though if I know that everyone who signed up can play well in a group, I may take five or six). It's far too easy to lose someone or end up with four separate storylines in one scene otherwise.

Also, don't be afraid of narrative buttkicking. If it takes an NPC with an ego to herd all the cats in one direction, do it.

@silverfox said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

@l-b-heuschkel

Oh it has been done in many places. It is just that if the prompts aren't updated then it gets stale and less used over time.

That makes sense. Particularly if those prompts have to follow some kind of linear timeline where things need to be regularly brought up to speed. That's a nightmare.

@silverfox

A random prompt for experiences and one-shots fitting the setting is not that difficult to code. I can say that because I actually managed (with a bit of help, granted) and I'm definitely no code wizard.

https://keys.aresmush.com/inspiration

@lotherio We have done something along those lines on Keys insofar that every player who wants to can set up a reality of their own and make of it what they will. It seems to be working okay.

Same. Of course I largely play in an async/slow format anyhow so somebody needing to pause for 30 minutes is hardly an issue. But always, either way, real life comes first.

You're welcome to check out Keys. While it does have a story, the pace is very relaxed and you get only as involved as you care to be. If that means slice of life nothing supernatural happens much around your character, that's fine.

@icanbeyourmuse I will expect that once the people trying to be funny but actually managing the opposite are made aware, though, they will cut it out. Because their intention was not to abuse or harass in the first place.