I think one of the biggest mental benefits of Ares is being able to do multiple scenes at once, and async, because then I never feel like I am holding someone up. And people can feel freer to RP when they know they can set it and come back.

It seems like the MUSHing community has, by and large, stayed a similar community, and whereas a lot of us started our MU* career when were single without responsibilities, as we get older we start finding that we don't have six hours to spend roaming a grid and finding great pickup RP.

I always felt bad RPing with someone if I could not give them my full attention because I was working and prone to boss calls, or trying to accomplish something. Because I was keeping them from RPing with someone else.

With Ares, they can RP with that someone else and respond to me. And the same goes vice versa.

I think the other thing that is great about being able to easily do async is that there are amazing RPers that live half a world away that I would not be able to consistently interact with absent that.

Finally, I think the sheer versatility of the portal allows for you to do some really interesting things. Like have a game where you have a core character, but different versions of that character exist. You can use the same stats (or not stats if you aren't a stats game) and then just expand out from there with your variations.

Also, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, if you are a game with alts, being able to have ONE login in ONE place and connect all of your alts (if you want to, optionally) for the purposes of pages, channels, and RPing? Huge plus if you want to keep track of things.

Honestly, it's going to be a struggle to convince me to go to any non-Ares game at this point because I have simply gotten too used to the conveniences.

I think the truth is, everybody does wish fulfillment RP at some point or another, and as some element of nearly every character. Not all the time, and not only. Same way everybody wants to win some. Of course they do.

Every so often, yeah, one runs across a player who really seems, from every angle you look, to be doing only wish fulfillment and want all and only triumphs and glory. But more often, it's just an accusation used to promote the idea that somebody deserves less consideration in a conflict. It is also very often projection. Abelard wants to roll, protests being simply declared to have failed, but Brigid will not get the glory if Abelard succeeds, so she says Abelard "just wants to win," or "just wants his character to be super-cool all the time." In reality both want to win and be super-cool, and neither wants only that all the time, but both are likely to suggest the other is greedy for wins and wish fulfillment and rejecting other play. Just how likely they are to make these accusations depends on individual temperament, individual mental state at the time, individual past experiences of such claims working or not, how much OOC-cooperative vibe/tradition exists on the game, and (as mentioned in the incentivizing failure thread) how confident those players are of getting more chances.

@Arkandel said in Upgrade Bugs, Quirks, and Questions:

@Derp I had some "Forbidden" errors pop up when I tried to submit posts in multiple threads (including in 'Readers' and 'Mildly Constructive').

When I refreshed the tab a few times and pasted the same post a few more, it finally let the post go through.

Yeah it’s probably a session mismatch since the ux stuff is somewhat different. I recommend clearing cookies and doing a hard refresh. It happened to me a few times too.

@misadventure Oh the latter, just prompts. I don't know, like maybe the flight attendant armed with a sonic toothbrush comes up with some really great idea. That person knows their character's strengths and if they can use them in a way I can't think of for myself then right on. If they can pull off the rolls they gotta pull off, equally right on. If the rolls go bad, I proceed with making their character's day that much more complicated. I might raise an eyebrow when the non-combat glass jaw shows up at a scene that I think looks like heavy combat, but if they can find a reason to be there and a way to contribute, great.

Now what I do get irritated at is when Captain McGlass Jaw gets mad at me for not coming up with some specific way for Captain McGlass Jaw to shine. Like...dude that's your job, I'm over here being the rain and the engines and the guy with the gun, you tell me how you Awesome.

@runescryer

Okay. I’ll start writing. Let’s PM.

@zombiegenesis It'd be so good. Would be fun to go full reboot/AU on the MK story and let people play out the cast there.

I inadvertantly mischanned/mavved/xchanned (all the same deal) about contrived/meaningless death and about how it would probably kill my future muse to carry on. More so, though, it is the emotional connection through that specific character that I would miss (even though I would be really upset about having lost a dear part of my own self, too).

I have not lost many of my own PCs (a rare few who were mostly jokes and had not yet made meaningful connections), but what I have lost are those amazing people like my own muses like Famous Outlaw (about whom @hobos recently wrote).

Way back in the ye olden days (MUD/RPI times), I used to generally cop a badass/hardcore attitude and totally deny my personal feelings -- and sometimes do whenever I am covering up and just being 'too macho' -- about these things, but deep down and when being more self aware: it all really hurts.

Right now, I am -- after more than a season's time -- still grieving the unexpected disappearance of a PC's SO after 8 years of being RP pardners. Cannot go a full week without a sudden cry at least every other day or so.

We were building up to eventually tackle background/family matters, but one day, they were suddenly gone. Right after their PC's birthday.

Although I still play my own PC, it is emotionally difficult for me because their other half is currently missing in an OOC sense (but still together in an IC one because I do not really move on very quickly, and it is highly unlikely that this one ever will due to the sheer longevity of that IC pardnership).

Anyway, the main point is that it is seriously painful to lose characters (worse than reading Old Yeller or Where The Red Fern Grows) after the strong bonding to both your own character as well as Famous Outlaw(s).

@arkandel said in Don't Join Discord Servers!!!:

@faraday Yeah and that's the thing, too. Some of us do have friends who send weird messages, start playing new games, join different guilds etc... and from whom randomness like that wouldn't be completely out of place.

I get that, but that's just indisputably risky behavior in this day and age of phishing scams.

Friends can help each other out by not just sending random "hey check this out" type messages, but instead providing context.

You can help yourself by turning on your "sus" radar even when the random link is from a friend. Examine the link to see where it's actually taking you (wary of typos or google.somewherelse.com type scams), double-check the lock icon in the browser and security certificate, be extra suspicious of anything asking you to provide login creds or click on a "trust me" popup.

There are no guarantees of course, but there are good practices.

ETA: I don't mean to trivialize, because this crap is hard. Scammers are expert at manipulating human behavior. Even security professionals fall victim. All we can do is take steps reduce our risk.

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

@runescryer I will require that you use the old Mercenary/High Guard/Scout/Merchant Prince to generate life events for plot arcs. Death/discharge optional.

Right now, I'm trying to sort out the mess of system designs. I got the latest version of Traveller 5, but holy crap, that system is near indecipherable...

I'll probably just go with TNE, since I'm looking at that as the setting, anyways. So, all that material should be doable or already included. Also looking to adapt Aslan, Vargr, Zhodani, and possibly the Denaar for PCs. Hivers as Staff PC (since they're running things Just As Planned). K'kree have huge entourages as PCs. And Droyne also have the link to the Ancients that make them potentially problematic as PCs.

@derp I'm holding out for the Appalachians. 🙂 There's going to be a whole book about that!

@faraday

I've never seen any system like that. It always distinguishes between action and speech in what I've played, so you'd see something like:

At the bar, Bob looks at John with narrowed eyes. "Y... t me, pu..?" He yelled, "G...O..! Now, ... .... .... ch...."

Or whatever. And if people really wanted to yell, they wouldn't use tabletalk for it, usually.

Anyway, reading your layout of rationales, I think that's very well said.

It's very interesting to me that you would distinguish immersion and story. I've never thought of them as very separate concepts before, but now that I see that, it's enlightening. They're not the same thing. Most systems tend to prioritize one over the other to some degree, even while trying to have both, like being bilingual -- there's going to a first language in most cases.

My thought on this is basically table talk, but where anyone (or at the very least a GM player) can be at as many places as needed? Like the green/yellow/red idea above, have it switch to a specific command to emit to the entire room.

It could also be looked at as a bunch of channels.

@faraday Do you happen to have or recall a list of the pros and cons for the setups you looked at?

@lotherio And smaller isn't really a bad thing, IMO. I'll take quality of a player-base over quantity every time.

From my perspective as a long-time lurker and very occasional poster...

This has all appeared extremely silly, ngl. That might seem dismissive to some of the people who were involved in the very heat of it, but I don't really intend it to be. Overall, the optics from a largely outside observer on all of this haven't really been great, but I feel like that starts to tread into water that's not terribly relevant for the original point of this thread, so I'll attempt to stay on topic.

First off, if you genuinely want to make MSB a positivity-focused environment, you have to understand that you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. The reputation that MSB inherited from WORA and further refined with the Hogpit isn't one that goes hand in hand with 'calm and measured discourse.' You're undoubtedly going to have a lot of people who will try to continue to foster the more hostile environment the place has been known to be for a while. It feels a bit like an Applebee's just bought out a biker bar, so expect the bikers to keep showing up for a while, either in protest or ignorance. Honestly, if I hadn't been watching what's been going on, if someone told me that MSB fractured and a new place opened called Brand MU Day, I definitely wouldn't be putting money on MSB being the one all about positive discourse from here on out.

Anyway, that's just one of the two main hurdles I see going forward. The other is that... like... You're humans, too. You are not immune to tribalism and cliques anymore than the Brand MU Day people are. Be wary of the urge to label any criticism or opinion that you dislike as being hateful or insulting. This is the internet, disagreements are going to happen and they will get heated. Think hard about where you want to draw the line and make sure you make it clear where that line is.

Mind, none of this is to say I've seen evidence of any of this so far. It's just a general warning as someone who has seen and sighed his way through repeated fractures and merges as a comic game fan. Generally speaking, I'm all for a positive environment for discourse. Once upon a time I would have thought it was impossible on the internet, but over the years I've seen a few examples of it (mostly) working so... I'm rooting for you guys, but I wouldn't say I'm totally convinced of the viability of this experiment yet.

@faraday said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@ghost said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

I'm a writer. I want a collaborative writing system with some rules attached.

This, 100%. Also, I'm too old to learn fancy new tech things.

However, I do think it would be cool to have a platform like what Ghost is talking about, because I know I've played with some people who could take functions like that and make interactive story with it. I think it's something I'd love to watch others do. I bet it would look awesome and be very entertaining.

@jeshin said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

The ethics of IC Romance and TS is all about managing expectations. If you're going to be 100% IC, you need to be 100% IC. If this means you're cheating and you have crazy hawt seches and have some hickies, you need to RP covering them up or they get spotted. If you're going to have OOC collab you need to be upfront. OOC collab means that you are writing a story together and just like writers in a meeting you're pitching ideas and discussing story threads. This includes any negative drama you want to explore. If you want to go some IC/OOC hybrid because you're chatting and coordinating playtimes and you banter a bit. You just need to be honest. Don't mislead your RP partner. If honesty leads to hurt feelings that sucks but you're not a creeper or abuser if you don't try and obscure or manipulate. You might be an asshole, but I think there is a fundamental difference between being an ass and victimizing your RP partners.

100%!

MSB is still pretty anonymous truth. be told. Unless you post something to a playlist or use the same handle on a game where it would be known, there is really nothing to tie you to any character on a MU. Some very clever people might pick up on things based on OOC comments, writing style, etc, but for the most part, if none of you ever told me who you played, I'd have no clue.

@arkandel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ZoiJeFgRg