With IC failure, there are different kinds that need to be looked at. My characters fail and fail often at a lot of things - they might have things they're good at, sure, but go ahead and put my hairdresser on a horse and see how badly that can go! Or drop my fighter into a social situation where he's expected to hold his own against nobility in the land of diplomacy and lifted pinkies. The list could go on.

There's fun in that conflict. There's fun in personal imperfection and plots designed around that kind of growth. Facilitating personal plots toward that end should always be encouraged as best as possible.

There isn't any fun in attempting to go for an IC rank against another person where the IC rank is determined via OOC means. You could view that as an IC failure where growth can occur - but, unless a person's bowed out of the race with grace to explore that growth or everyone's cool with whatever happens, there's going to be some OOC friction there.

I'd say it might be worth reviewing the IC ranks (or whatever, but this is the one thing where I find 'failure' to be unsatisfying) to see if there are better ways of navigating them - do they have to be held by PCs? Can they logically be on a rotating schedule? And, if the alternatives just aren't viable, then maybe front-loading things with: you can either get IC position or get this juicy plot hook/other position/some other tasty treat that appeals.

That just doesn't happen often in advance - and, typically, by the time the IC rank's been settled, the 'loser' isn't necessarily inclined to take the booby prize for failing.

I've never been a fan of places code (or, rather, the 'table talk' commands) because reaching out to the rest of the room required posing twice: once for the 'place', once for the rest of the room. If it was designed to allow someone to section off part of their pose to display publicly, that might help some.

Or a 'spy' command so someone could watch what was happening in one of the other places without communicating directly.

Or the 'table talk' commands could randomly choose a few lines to emit (ambition suggests that 'places' that are closer in proximity would see more of what's happening, but that's a whole other layer of code and planning) - or act like 'mumble', where some parts of a pose are blotted out and the rest displayed to the room as if people were catching a glimpse of something.

The idea overall is tripping "You Know They Got a Hell Of a Band" vibes for me. Small town in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place that a person just kind of... stumbles on - but can never, ever leave. Granted, that story was more about where dead musicians go and the living souls that get bound to the place inadvertently, but the idea of nightmares and dreams (and those affiliated with them) somehow being drawn to a place or congregating there without a conscious awareness of what's happening is pretty alluring. Then it's a mystery of 'why them', 'why there', and possibly 'how do we leave' (with all sorts of other plotty possibilities to spin off of that.)

With IC failure, there are different kinds that need to be looked at. My characters fail and fail often at a lot of things - they might have things they're good at, sure, but go ahead and put my hairdresser on a horse and see how badly that can go! Or drop my fighter into a social situation where he's expected to hold his own against nobility in the land of diplomacy and lifted pinkies. The list could go on.

There's fun in that conflict. There's fun in personal imperfection and plots designed around that kind of growth. Facilitating personal plots toward that end should always be encouraged as best as possible.

There isn't any fun in attempting to go for an IC rank against another person where the IC rank is determined via OOC means. You could view that as an IC failure where growth can occur - but, unless a person's bowed out of the race with grace to explore that growth or everyone's cool with whatever happens, there's going to be some OOC friction there.

I'd say it might be worth reviewing the IC ranks (or whatever, but this is the one thing where I find 'failure' to be unsatisfying) to see if there are better ways of navigating them - do they have to be held by PCs? Can they logically be on a rotating schedule? And, if the alternatives just aren't viable, then maybe front-loading things with: you can either get IC position or get this juicy plot hook/other position/some other tasty treat that appeals.

That just doesn't happen often in advance - and, typically, by the time the IC rank's been settled, the 'loser' isn't necessarily inclined to take the booby prize for failing.

The idea overall is tripping "You Know They Got a Hell Of a Band" vibes for me. Small town in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place that a person just kind of... stumbles on - but can never, ever leave. Granted, that story was more about where dead musicians go and the living souls that get bound to the place inadvertently, but the idea of nightmares and dreams (and those affiliated with them) somehow being drawn to a place or congregating there without a conscious awareness of what's happening is pretty alluring. Then it's a mystery of 'why them', 'why there', and possibly 'how do we leave' (with all sorts of other plotty possibilities to spin off of that.)

I've never been a fan of places code (or, rather, the 'table talk' commands) because reaching out to the rest of the room required posing twice: once for the 'place', once for the rest of the room. If it was designed to allow someone to section off part of their pose to display publicly, that might help some.

Or a 'spy' command so someone could watch what was happening in one of the other places without communicating directly.

Or the 'table talk' commands could randomly choose a few lines to emit (ambition suggests that 'places' that are closer in proximity would see more of what's happening, but that's a whole other layer of code and planning) - or act like 'mumble', where some parts of a pose are blotted out and the rest displayed to the room as if people were catching a glimpse of something.

A Pern game with properly scheduled Threadfall, with a living world (NPCs that grow old and die without others needing to manage them, with life events that happen with some regularity, and so on), extensive family trees for people and dragons, areas that have things happening (even if it's code-scheduled Gathers or other events), and where population information is consistent and there are attrition rates and-

Okay, it's Pern the Excel spreadsheet mated to a database, but I really do like all of the fiddly information bits and the idea of a game that will run all of that stuff in the background while the focus of things sits on a plot that runs 6 months to a year. 1:1 time, with accelerated time for 'down time' or time skips from time to time to keep things moving.

I just really want to have a game where NPC area leadership is clear and where they don't turn into weird methuselahs because no one knows how old they are - and for those NPCs to have an actual history.

And if I could rouse myself enough to scrape the rust off of my Python skills, maybe this will be closer to a game I'd actually make.