Fucking awesome.

I have not done this for a whole game, but I have done it very small scale when creating the history/background between PCs or the formation of a group, ect.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to try to decouple that from the players' personal PCs to create history/legends.

However I think that how well that would work would depend on the players and their interest in taking on a role other than their current PC and being willing to not tie it back totally to their PC (as you mention, hiding a stockpile of magic weapons, ect). It would be a neat way to give players investment in the background of a world other than JUST what their PC can do in it now.

You could always give it a shot, see how it works, if it becomes problematic you can just amend. I think it is worth a try.

@Misadventure It can be a root for how I see the PC and formed them, yes! Even if never seen. For me though that tends to NOT happen with photos/actual actors and more with art, which then I get frustrated trying to fine a photo to match the fact that everyone else uses photos (if they do). It doesn't always happen with art (there's always music involved too, and not always of the same time era/style of the MUSH too which sometimes means people make fun of it as well).

Maybe because I use other people's wikis they're created of their PC as a launching point OR just a supplement/insight into what their creator was thinking when they first got on the grid, and most of my experience with them is going to be formed by that personal interaction rather than anything static, I'm not super attached to someone else totally adopting my vision for how they should see my PC.

@Ghost What you did there? I see it.

@JinShei No, I don't think I ever made any house rules/adjustments when my group played it.

Hi all,
As promised, @browncoat and I have been discussing and working on our security setup and admin policies for FSF. We've just posted an improved policy on our wiki. There will be no DARK snooping on players. We will, if necessary, set people SUSPECT and whenever possible communicate with them as that happens rather than doing so silently. Thanks again to those of you who engaged us in discussion on all of this - our goal is to create a good, solid game where people can have fun playing together in the Firefly Verse.

Another improvement: we've just opened up guest access to the game (and to the +newbie channel, in-game) so that people can drop in and talk to us before creating a character. We hope to add player-spawning of characters soon. For now, that step still goes through an email, and we'll be glad to set people up.

Come say hi!

firefly.silvertree.org 2517

Osiris

I created a thread in the hog pit and will be moving the appropriate posts there. I think the real discussion actually is interesting and was at least for the most part constructive, and there are some interesting issues discussed that I can see why some folks might not want the whole thing moved to the hog pit.

If you want to rip into someone personally, please do it there. Further namecalling posts here after this post will just be moved to the locked circular file thread.

Topic drift is fine and expected. Personal attacks and just namecalling really aren't but if it is important to you to do so there's now an appropriate place to do so. Thanks.

@Kestrel hahahaha yeaaaaah pretty much what I thought, too

For me, the hardest part was finding a game where I felt welcome. I have a few challenges to deal with before I feel that there's room for me in a game.

One is a learning disability; due to chronic pain my capacity for taking in new information is limited -- I can swallow down only so many game commands, setting lore, and background information in one sitting. Games with miles and miles of old history that you are expected to read up on and know before daring to join a conversation -- not happening. If your setting deviates that much from the canon universe, whatever that is, it's not accessible to new people.

Games with complex custom settings and stories that require lots of lore learning before playing are out (looking at a lot of novel or movie setting games here), as are games that require you to learn a ttrpg system (looking at the various WoD games here for sure).

Social anxiety is another. Games where you have to pretty get on your knees and beg in order for older players to notice slash recognise you are out. MU*s are social games -- don't make newbies exist in their own vaccuum for days if you want them to stay. At the very least return IC greetings.

I don't expect roleplay to get handed to me on a platter when I enter a game, but I have had the same experience many times when deciding that I can do this, yes I can -- you get a character through the app process and finally get on the grid, and no one responds to you. You walk into rooms and try to join a conversation and get flat out ignored. You see people who are somehow marked 'helpers' or 'newbie friendly' and send them a whisper or a page -- and get no response. After a few hours of that, I'm out. I'm not going to stay where I am obviously not wanted.

And obviously, the community needs to be tolerable. I've seen some pretty horrific things out there, although the MMO games tend to be a lot worse than the MU*s.

In the end I gave up on MU*s and MMOs alike. I got dragged back in this fall by @JinShei whom I used to play with elsewhere when she was opening her new Discworld themed mush. I am grateful for that because it's a setting I know very well, Ares is ridiculously easy to learn and use, and since I was there from the start, I don't need to bang on doors to get the older players to acknowledge me (though I make a point out of trying to greet guests and newcomers the way I've often wished someone would greet me on a new game).

Amazingly, it looks like my tale of woe got a happy ending.

@Ganymede said in Trivia for Health:

@Kestrel

I feel all of that.

Season your food. Dammit.

^ This.

'Spicy' is not the only flavor out there. I am always delighted when I find things that are very seasoned but not spicy.

@faraday said in Learning Ruby for Ares:

I was reminded that I did a blog post awhile back on the Ares dev blog awhile back about learning Ares code by starting small and reinventing a few wheels before working up to tackle a major project. Might be of interest to some.

While I did indeed jump straight into the big projects, the coding tutorials were actually a huge help! I had tried getting into Ares several times before and each time I was quickly overwhelmed by the complexity (and I have 20 years of experience with MOO, MUSH, MUCK, LPMUD, etc so it wasn't like I was coming in completely "cold". It was still overwhelming).

This last time, I worked my way through the basic coding tutorials and they really helped me learn the system. Ruby was a different story. I was able to figure out the basics just by looking at the code, but ultimately I did have to invest in a Ruby book to learn some of the not-so-obvious things such as code blocks, modules, and how only nil and false are considered False (which actually caused me no small amount of frustration because I use short-circuit evaluation in my code quite a bit).

I highly recommend that anyone interested in learning to code for Ares, start with those tutorials. They'll definitely help ease you into what is a fairly complex game engine.

I'm so sorry to hear of a loss in our community. Condolences to everyone who knew her and enjoyed being a part of the Masquerade game.

once upon a time I did one for Magik

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1gLU3ILmMp7mEvKrlUYBhz

and one for Black Widow (the 40s version)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Xa8M5PRpyewYZxDveVGOL

@faraday said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

You can start with level 6 (out of 7) in both Piloting and Gunnery if you want, yet you don't see Viper pilot players leaving in droves like: "Wellp; I've maxxed out my skills. There's nothing more to do here." There are other ways to measure achievement -- story arcs, relationships, thrilling heroics, even to a lesser degree medals, victory tallies and promotions.

For what it's worth from a story telling perspective I'd put Wedge Antilles (Corellian frieghter pilot tuned star fighter) and Biggs Darklighter (Imperial trained pilot, friend of Luke's from home, visited after academy graduation in deleted scenes) at the same level or a few points off each other in FS3. Same chances maybe more gunnery in the trained Biggs. Biggs dies at Yavin 4 and Antilles is on ask three original trilogy films, firing the first torpedo in death star two to weaken it for Landos file through). Everyone has the same chances at start and to catch up a little after even only a few action skill raises. In a more complex system getting these two closer to the movie payout sounds nightmarish.

I prefer power variety but with equal chance for story impact. Vet's and rookies alike.

@Seraphim73 said in Model Policies?:

it's not going to interest all the players, but it's still good to have available so that players who are interested can all be on the same page.

I wish I could upvote this a dozen times more.

Often, the 'too much!' issue isn't the issue people assume it is. Reference-as-needed is a thing. If it's needed and it's not there, the problem surpasses someone whining that they feel like they have to read everything first, when that's rarely the case at all.

@Kestrel ugh, I hate being let down like that. These days, every time I like something a dude has done/created I have that nagging "you are probably going to regret enjoying this" feeling. Women are not immune, of course, but...

The thing about 'sexist behavior' - or racist, or whatever - is that it's so rarely a binary. I know several men I've had to bring around in my actual life who seemed to think sexist men were these mustache twirling goons who couldn't stop themselves from making comments like GET IN THE KITCHEN AND SUCK MY DICK every time they so much as saw a woman. It's so rarely like that. These biases and entitlements are deep seated and strongly conditioned, and often you don't even see them until you knock that person off-canter. You don't see that a man is sexist until a woman challenges him/has some kind of control over an aspect of his life.

RP is so emotionally charged, and SO full of wish fulfillment. You see sexism coming out of people around rp because almost no one gracefully accepts having their fun/power fantasy affected by someone else. I am an ethical, thoughtful, and compassionate person, and I get bent out of shape emotionally about rp.

First they came for the child molesters and I did nothing, for I was not a child molester.

Then they came for the animal fuckers and I did nothing, for I was not an animal fucker.

Then they came for the rapists, and I did nothing. For I was not a rapist.

They never came for me, however, for I was not a child molesting, animal fucking rapist.

@bored It really comes down to basis of opinion. I think in MU the more the numbers creep up the less individualistic a character might feel, especially when you add in alts. Maybe it's just my "old school" showing, but back in the day there were 7 Camarilla clans and few bloodlines and I saw people dig for a whole lot of complexity without the need/existence of those things. Stuff like Bloodlines/RU stuff like Koldunic Sorcery grew in popularity, which I suspect is why they ended up common CG options with nWoD.

Still, back in the day of 7ClanCam, I think players who found ways to make their "painter Toreador" stand out amidst 2 or 3 other "painter Toreadors" was part of the art form.