Got a new car and I'm almost done packing and preparing for my cross country drive for a new job. It feels good to accomplish such a big task that has taken almost three weeks.

Made it to California with all the stuff I didn't throw away crammed into my car. Started my job and I think I can do it. Got a 6-month lease and am moving in. Cross your fingers and knock on wood, but things seem to be working out.

@arkandel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

What do you think?

I think you just linked me a video from fucking Upper Echelon Gaming, who is an annoying prat that is constantly going on about how SJWs are ruining video games.

Is Big Purple (rpg.net) a bunch of gold medalists at the Woke Olympics with their heads stuck so far up their own asses that the lack of oxygen is clearly what is killing their brain cells? Yes. Upper Echelon, though, is not the person you want making that argument.

To your actual question (sorry, I was just a bit flabbergasted that someone actually linked to UEG), be upfront and clear about the themes of your game and it's base background lore. As long as you're clear on those fronts, it's on the player to do their research before joining a game. You can't get angry at Shang because some Karen decided to join without doing the research and gets bent out of sorts at the first PC she comes across being Dicktopus, the Titillating Testicularly Tentacled Treasure.

@greenflashlight said in Critters!:

plz pet my tummers

but also dont touch or i bite

I hate the dating scene.

That is all.

To go down a L&L setting without bloodlines mattering, this idea combines some fairy tale-esque ideas with a little Mandate of Heaven. The title-holders of a piece of land are literally chosen by that land. Somehow a person becomes imbued with the trust of the genius loci of that place and becomes the noble of that place. It could follow a family line for a while before jumping to someone outside that family. A person could become entrusted by many lands, growing in power.

However, the land is influenced by the virtues and moral failings of its chosen paragon and each land has expects different things from its holder. If a noble lives up to the proper virtues, the land flourishes, crops grow two, three, fourfold in abundance, rivers and streams fill with fish, wild fruits and vegetables are practically tripped over with every step through the woods, every day seems brighter, the colors more vivid, and every night is peaceful. If a noble fails to meet the land's expectations, colors grow duller, the fields harder to plow, crops shrink in size, the streams become muddy sludge flows, and the rivers choppy and treacherous, the woods fill with thorns and poisonous plants, and the nights filled with fear.

I would probably use something like Pendragon's personality traits for this and give each land a selection of traits it cares about that are tied to the feel of that particular place. A wild, verdant rainforest might prefer Energetic, Indulgent, Arbitrary, Lustful, and Suspicious. A desert could prefer Cruel, Modest, Prudent, Honest, and Temperate. A noble who tries to hold the titles for many different lands will have to juggle the traits those lands desire of their title holder.

@nyctophiliac

Who needs RP when you have adorable basset hounds to play with?

Who needs socks when you have warm snuggly basset hounds to lay at your feet?

Boris was doing you a favor by reminding you of what's truly important - droopy doggos.

@surreality said in World Building: What are the essentials?:

As a player, what information do you want and need about a game world to effectively play the game (ex: be able to formulate a character you feel fits the world and knows what the characters should know about it)?

If we're talking about what information I want right up front, as I come across your server for the first time, this is what I look for.

First, you're home page should have in big bold letters near the top the address and port to connect to your world. It surprises me how many servers have this information tucked away somewhere rather than having it be prevalent. Some have it hidden so well that it's quicker for me to go to MUDstats or Top MUD Sites and just look it up there than it is to scour every page to find it. Maybe this is to cut down on bots or something. I don't know, but it's a good way to deny yourself players. If it's that hard just to find out how to connect - the most important thing of all in regards to playing on a server, just imagine how hard it will be to find out all the minor details.

Second, the main page should have a summary of the themes, the setting, and current events on the server. Give me an elevator pitch summation as well. It's DUNE, Pirates of the Caribbean, Earthsea, Planescape, Birthright, and Conan the Barbarian all rolled into one. I want to say to myself "I love some/all of those things OR that combination sounds intriguing even though I am not a fan of many of those things. Sounds badass and I should check it out" OR "I dislike most/all of those things OR that combination sounds awful. I think I will stay away." You've already got me invested a bit, so I will dig deeper with the first, and the latter has helped me not waste my and you and your player helpers time, as I won't dip my toes in things and pester them with questions. Once you have my interest and I am logging on as a guest, I like the few servers I have been on that allows Guests to walk a small part of the grid to get a feel for things and even see some RP.

If your server uses a pre-existing IP, state that upfront and give me information on where I can find more info. Give me the entire list of books, the names of the TV series in the franchise, the names of the video games in the franchise, or whatever, so I can check it out and get a better feel. Also be damned specific of what time period and location in this IP we are working with and where the server departs from the IP. Are we doing Battlestar Galactica but without any of the cast from the series and only player created characters filling the important roles instead? Is this Star Wars but in the Force Unleashed Universe where spoilers Darth Vader gets killed by his apprentice and the apprentice becomes the Darth Vader character?

Now that I am interested and am trying to make a character, this is the information I would like to see.

Seriously what characters does the server have a glut and scarcity of? I don't want ads by players asking for someone to play their cousin, sister, former roommate who all would be filling roles that are superfluous at this point. The vast majority of players have no idea what the server needs. You, the staff, should, and, if you don't, I probably don't want to be playing on your server. I want a list made by staff saying "We need sniveling thieves; devious, cold-hearted information brokers; and a player for flamboyant Prince Floofypants. Applications are closed for big, strong, dashing McFightyman as 98% of the male characters are in that archetype currently." This is one thing that Kushiel's Debut was good at. I always knew what character types were being looked for and they offered an xp bonus if you created a character that fell in those areas. Firan also did this a little bit with their bonus xp for taking certain characters off of the roster.

What is the typical day for a character of this archetype and what are the cultural norms they are expected to adhere to? This one needs no explanation. Help me get into character by understanding what this character would be doing on a regular basis and what their worldview is. What titles are used for who, what kinds of food do we eat, what kinds of products are available, what's the typical salary, what religions are there and how devout is my character expected to be, what will get me murdered in the street, what will get me executed by the state, what do people see as being virtuous/necessary traits and what traits do people see as vices/liabilities? Be as detailed as possible. While I won't absorb it all in one go, it will be used as a reference for practically everything.

What plots/factions/interesting things are accessible to me so that I can get involved? Make a big jobs board if you have to. Sure, it may be a bit MMORPG-like feeling like a quest vending machine, but, if that's what it takes, do it. Give me a list of the people to contact to join X faction/get involved in Y plot/join Z club. If after the first week I am unable to tell you what the big plots are and how I can get involved in them, your server has a problem.

What expectations are there for specific roles? Does being the head of a faction come with a lot of OOC responsibilities like being the president of a club IRL or is it just a fancy hat to wear and, if I have a problem, a question, or an idea, I should instead poke Soandso? If I do have to poke Soandso, make it clear that that is who I should be poking, rather than wasting my time trying to reach the person with the fancy hat. ALSO, if it's not just a fancy hat, don't go over that person's head. If Bob is the treasurer, then ALL expenditures MUST go through him or Alice the vice-treasurer. Don't tell me it's a position with clout but deny me the clout. I became treasurer to control the purse strings, so let me control them and let me smack people with my e-peen when they try to go around me. If you don't want that on your server, it's a fancy hat title and make it clear it's just a fancy hat from the get-go. Furthermore, if it does have clout but the person isn't doing their job, kick 'em out. Don't toe the ground and demurely say 'Well, they're busy IRL." I don't care. Life happens, but you're holding up people's shit. Yes, this is a hobby, but so are clubs and they won't put up with a missing president or treasurer. Appoint someone as an acting treasurer or let the vice treasurer have the full role for a time, if you can't bring yourself to apply boot to said absent backside.

As a player, what kind of information do you find gets in your way more than it helps you accomplish this?

Do not have player made Wanted Ads without staff made ones as well. As I addressed above, nine times out of ten players have no clue what the server needs. I don't want to get excited about playing a character then a month or two into playing them realize that they are in a niche that is oversaturated and they have nothing to do aside from being the advertiser's sister/brother/cousin/maid/butler/sextoy.

The History of Everything Ever is nice but it is not as important as the now stuff. I need to know what is going on NOW and what my character's regular, daily life is. I like having access to a giant page of history, but it is a nice, secondary addition. If you have to decide between the giant history write-up or the daily life write-up, do the latter.

The ginormous page of feats/merits/bennies should be able to be saved until later. Kushiel's Debut had a merits page on their wiki that probably took half an hour to a full hour to read in its entirety. Nothing kills the thrill of creating a new character like having to stop and peruse every entry to see if it might apply to my character, then doing the arithmetic of which of the feats are essential and which I have to cut and get later with xp. I should be able to skip that section of chargen, if I want, and add merits as I play, figuring out my character's background and role on the server better.

Is it important to you, as a player, to have information available that distinguishes 'what locals would know' vs. 'what out of towners/new arrivals' would know?

Absolutely! If your server doesn't have the helpful gimmick of all new characters have to also be new arrivals to the area the game takes place in, I need to know what my character would know from living there for the past X number of years. I hate it when a new player says or does something that is incorrect and someone poses that the character is acting odd, is an idiot, etc. when it's simple ignorance on the new player's part rather than intentional. And it almost always happens! I page the player and let them know of the error, but there is always that one person who makes a big deal out of it IC. Can we all agree that these people need smacked?

If you're a new arrival, what kind of information is useful to you about your character's original culture? (This is more relevant in original settings than modern 'real world' setting games for obvious reasons.)

Everything. If you thought of it, write it down on the wiki/website in that giant page of cultural stuff. I may not absorb it the first time, but at least it will always be on hand to refer to.

Does it help to have information about what misconceptions, rumors, etc. from your character's original culture's perspective about the game's setting?

Yes. This goes hand in hand with the answer immediately above this one. There is no such thing as too much information for this. At some point, everything will get touched on by RP, so might as well cover it in the culture write-up, letting players know for sure how things are rather than them winging it and being way off of the mark, possibly starting a wrong viewpoint for half of the playerbase.

What if it's a Final Destination spoof? Death keeps trying to kill Sean Bean as he keeps fleeing through scene after scene, managing to avoid all the Rude-Goldberg set-ups that will result in him dying.

@misadventure

Where does one get one of these invites?

@arkandel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

(Apparently this can be tested for but only with an autopsy, which I object to)

Because the only way to know if prions are creating cavities in your brain matter is to physically check said brain matter.

@tinuviel

I will allow this only if the archive is named The Book of Grudges.

@silverfox

Freezer thin mints are the best.

Except Tagalongs and Samoas, which are the actual best.

@sunny said in RL Sads:

If you see me being a shit, please tell me to go take a nap. I'm TRYING to moderate myself but my brain isn't 100% functional.

Very understandable under the circumstances. You have my sincerest condolences, and please take care of yourself.

@too-old-for-this said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

The point is that they were right. They were booted out for all these crazy theories and wild ideas, that turned out to be absolutely true. Ray even expressed hesitation over going into the 'private sector' because they 'expect results' whereas the university did not. But it turned out that everything they'd theorized was true!

Yeeeeah, for some reason I still feel that the story is about a bunch of blue collar, Real American, anti-intellectualist, regular Joes sticking it to the man, and it's probably not a good message to be putting out there, if we're honest. I can't put my finger on why, though...

******

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/r61d7c/dont_touch_anything/

Isn't a pizzadilla a calzone?

I actually have the same thoughts on the original Ghostbusters as @GreenFlashlight. I never saw Peter and Ray as credible scientists. In fact, I usually forget that they're supposed to be scientists, considering how they are portrayed. Only Egon comes across as an actual, competent scientist. Epic Rap Battles skewered them pretty good.

I recently started thinking about faction design, and I have debated going with a looser faction than what most MU*s have with factions. Instead of noble houses or groups with a defined leader, I am thinking that factions need to be more akin to political parties and interest groups. Biden is the head of the Democratic Party, but the actual sway he holds is minimal and others can stamp out a position contrary to his and win the hearts of minds of members. Unlike a Noble house where the head of the house can disown you and remove you.

With these looser factions you can have some tenets that are immutable for the faction and then a bunch of less firm doctrines. GM staff will have the NPCs react to things based on the tenets and doctrines but the doctrines can be changed over time by the PCs. If a PC is doing something against a tenet or a bunch of doctrines, then they'll lose influence and disregarded. This gives room for jockeying within the faction between PCs and also solves the absent leader problem.