Blood of Dragons

[il-volpe]

@BigDaddyAmin said:

It doesn't seem to stop other people from creating Westerosi themed MU*s. Hell, now I want to make one just to spite you.

Do eeeeet.

[3543thrh67]

I've concluded, again, that Blood of Dragons is not the place for me. I was just looking at the 'application' process once again and it hasn't changed. I don't know why previous mu* experience is important. Someone who has never mued before could be a fabulous RPer (I've met a couple new people to muing). Also? Restricted chars need logs from previous scenes elsemu*.

Playing on BoD must be more like a job over pretendy fun time.

If one wants to make sure a char ends up suitable for going on a roster/in a character database? why not get the person IC then as time goes on /gently/ suggest background and the likes be modified because a person can realize the char is different than he or she intially thought they would be. Characters generally get WAY better when a person has played them for even a short time.

[Balerion]

@icanbeyourmuse,

Thank you for taking the time to look at the application process, as it helps to see what points potential players could get stuck at

The previous MU* experience question is mostly there so we know how likely it is that the person is going to need a lot of help with the basics of using a MUSH and if they have any experience with a MU* - based character CG since having previously CGed characters on games with the stat/skill/background CG type makes it easier getting through our CG. But that said, we have quite often permitted players who seem to have a basic understanding of the setting and who have a reasonable initial character concept to CG characters even if they've never MU*ed or even RPed (in some other format, i.e. forum, chat, tabletop) before. As to RP logs, it does say there are alternatives (which in all cases has meant that we waive the requirement and give a provisional approval which we'll revisit; we've never done the 'test scene' sort of thing.)

We're quite open to players adjusting the character concept after initial play, and in fact in some cases we've allowed tweaks months after initial CG when a player realizes certain aspects of the sheet (such as the personality Defects that are available to be taken as Flaws) never really hashed out or have become extremely minor character points compared to what developed as they played. Radical changes in concept would be more difficult in our system, it's true, but we've helped players CG a new character (or find an already-CGed character) that fits the concept they realize they'd rather play.

We definitely see the argument for a gentle entry into the game for new players. Our solution to that is for players to play a CGed character for awhile first to get a feel for the game, decide if it's for them, and to get some experience with things like what a CGed character looks like and what's expected in the process. Quite a lot of players take us up on that, starting with a Cameo or other CGed character for a few days, a week, a month before rostering and getting a character to CG for themselves -- whatever they feel comfortable with, really.

[BigDaddyAmin]

@il-volpe

I'd do it. And I have my ideas and would not mind being a theme administrator. And I would definitely set it in something other than Baelor's reign. Perhaps even before the Targaryens. (I was thinking of setting it in the Vale or the Reach before the Conquest, either at the Eyrie or Highgarden. More political fighting with other kingdoms, alliances overseas, and the like. NO VALYRIAN SPESCHUL TARGARYENS)

Unfortunately, I have no coding experience whatsoever. Also, I am not a perpetual student living off the Royal Swedish financial tit (as well as the sales from a World Book) to put in that amount of time.

Then again, that point might be moot. To be completely honest, while skulking about electronically, I notice that Blood of Dragons has very little activity going on. And this is for any time of the day. Granted, people might be assembled in rooms and things like that but are they actually doing any roleplay? Are they actually engaged? Observe the idle times:

Player Name On For Idle .
Elyse 9m 52s 2m
Holtyn 38m 46s 28m
Mylene 54m 57s 54m
Dragon Guest 1h 1m 59s 12m
Elyse 1h 3m 11s 10m
Bryon 1h 19m 12s 3m Valar dohaeris.
Ryone 1h 50m 36s 1m Toli rhuqo lotinti, kostilus.
Osmon 1h 53m 36s 1h
Darion 2h 33m 4s 1h One-shotting Tier IIIs.
Cleyton 2h 33m 6s 2m Hi-Ho Twinklehoof! Away!
Jonn 2h 47m 59s 10m There are no men like me. Only me.
Roland 3h 19m 11s 1h Don't get caught.
Orson 3h 19m 39s 3m I am the one who knocks!
Luthor 5h 13m 31s 5h From these beginnings
Aurana 7h 16m 51s 26m
Cadan 7h 48m 35s 7h
Dagur 7h 48m 35s 7h What is this madness
Damphair 7h 48m 36s 6h
Ryckon 9h 56m 46s 2h Honors, Not Honor
Elwood 11h 36m 1h
Mavros 11h 45m 11h
Marence 11h 46m 1h Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
Balerion 11h 46m 4h Stoking the furnace
Rhodry 11h 46m 1h Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing
Aidan 11h 46m 1m Dawn Brings Light!
Elmer 12h 20m 1h
Janden 12h 21m 1h If you see a redhead, approach gingerly
Samara 13h 33m 33m
Aisling 13h 33m 33m www.westeros.org/BoD/Profiles/
Elysa 13h 33m 33m
Nymeria 13h 33m 33m
Jyana 23h 58m 7h Help, I'm alive.
Gwenda 1d 10h 39m 8h
Danelle 1d 23h 7m 9h Je ne veux pas travailler...
Erena 1d 23h 7m 9h
Missandei 3d 23h 5m 8h Mori allayafi anna, jin alegra.
There are 36 players connected.

Where's the activity? I understand that it is 9PM on a Sunday on the east coast of the United States, but where's the activity? It is like this all the time? And what other plots are going on that don't involve speschul features that can only be played by Nymeria and Balerion? Also, what about the numbers? I count at least several PCs that are Balerion's alone...

[BigDaddyAmin]

@icanbeyourmuse said:

I've concluded, again, that Blood of Dragons is not the place for me. I was just looking at the 'application' process once again and it hasn't changed. I don't know why previous mu* experience is important. Someone who has never mued before could be a fabulous RPer (I've met a couple new people to muing). Also? Restricted chars need logs from previous scenes elsemu*.

Playing on BoD must be more like a job over pretendy fun time.

If one wants to make sure a char ends up suitable for going on a roster/in a character database? why not get the person IC then as time goes on /gently/ suggest background and the likes be modified because a person can realize the char is different than he or she intially thought they would be. Characters generally get WAY better when a person has played them for even a short time.

Going through Balerion's character generation is like filling out Form 1040 with the US Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, there's no chance of receiving a return.

[Bobotron]

I am just wondering what people do on that game, besides tourneys and general social stuff, since they want to 'adhere to the special canon info' they were given.

I mean, I guess that's cool but that stuff being the only real constant sounds real boring. I'm being entirely serious.

ETA: Speaking as someone who has done a lot of running of RL events that have social stuff (primarily face-to-face in LARP, but also handling staffing on other MU*s), there seems to be a point when there needs to be something else going on. Go to war, investigate magic, breed dragons, slay rogue dragons... If that stuff is there, cool, but it doesn't seem they've given themselves a lot of room to work with to do anything really cool with the setting.

[WTFE]

Thanks guys. I was really missing the traditional WORA bloodbath. You came through for me. I love you all!

[BigDaddyAmin]

^This.

@Bobotron said:

I am just wondering what people do on that game, besides tourneys and general social stuff, since they want to 'adhere to the special canon info' they were given.

I mean, I guess that's cool but that stuff being the only real constant sounds real boring. I'm being entirely serious.

That's all you can do on this game, really. They made several mistakes when creating this, IMHO. The biggest is going chronologically and limiting it to 1:1 time. Yes that's right. You heard me. Twenty-four hours on this game is twenty-four hours in real life. Baelor's reign is ten years. So they are going to go through with ten years of this. Not a lot happened during his reign and while Westeros was somewhat stable, the man attempted to turn it into a Puritanical dream. Doesn't seem very fun.

So you have Tourney MUSH. Currently the big thing going on right now is a wedding at Storm's End. Another wedding. More dances. More feasts. And another tourney. Wow.

So you have ten fucking years of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3811GYlfr0A

[Balerion]

@Bobotron

The information we have provides a few points on the roadmap. They haven't prevented us from doing major plot events, including the sacking of castles, outbreaks of private war, murders, etc. that are entirely invented by our players and staff.

I think it's much like any game that sets itself within a historical milieu (invented or otherwise), where the point isn't alternate history but playing in and with notable events... with the added bonus for players that sometime it's not clear to them if events that are happening are "just" created plots or actual "setting history" GRRM provided to us for use on the game which has not been otherwise published.

Alas, no more dragons in our time period, though.

[Jeshin]

I just want to point out, in the interest of another view of festivals! The Tudors montage! That violin player looks like he's enjoying the hell out of that festival, he's quivering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MSBiO-RB1g

[BigDaddyAmin]

@Balerion said:

@Bobotron

The information we have provides a few points on the roadmap. They haven't prevented us from doing major plot events, including the sacking of castles, outbreaks of private war, murders, etc. that are entirely invented by our players and staff.

I think it's much like any game that sets itself within a historical milieu (invented or otherwise), where the point isn't alternate history but playing in and with notable events... with the added bonus for players that sometime it's not clear to them if events that are happening are "just" created plots or actual "setting history" GRRM provided to us for use on the game which has not been otherwise published.

Alas, no more dragons in our time period, though.

In other words, when you play here on this game you are participating in something akin to a Nativity pageant. Follow the script, Lord help you. Perhaps GRRM will give you all more material to work with while he stalls writing Winds of Winter.

And if tonight's HBO episode is any indication of the future, seems like HBO will finish the story before he will.

[Bobotron]

@Balerion
So basically the gist that I expected of 'no major deviations'. What accounting do you have for player agency throwing the default history for a loop, or does it seem like people on the game just don't want that?

For example:

• Someone makes enough IC connections, creates a good plan and executes a plan to murder the king and take the throne through a well-constructed coup.
• Someone kills off every member of some family (let's use Lannister for example).

Are these types of things just being outright quashed, or are you open to player agency in that regard?

[il-volpe]

@Bobotron @BigDaddyAmin

I can't speak to its activity aside from the MUDstats numbers. When people who've come from there talk about it (You may talk about 'Blood of Dragons' on 'Game of Bones' though I do try to discourage bash-sessions about it unless you're doing so in private or on the channel that's reserved for being rude) the usual word goes that they either cannot get a scene, or the RP is repetitive nobles-having-huffs-at-other-nobles + tourneys, or that the player in question has been verbally abused by the staff there and cannot stand it any more.

Go to war, investigate magic, breed dragons, slay rogue dragons...

GoB is 1:1 in a time period that's kinda blank, but all of that is stuff we've done, or had people try with varying degrees of success, and a fair bit of fun. (Though the wars are mere skirmishes, and players do keep trying to tame the wild dragon just by yelling at it, which doesn't work, with comical results.)

@Alzie I think the confusion about BoD staff claiming that other games are not allowed to exist is because when Nymeria goes off on a rabid public howling spree about other games and how they are evil and bad and hurt her butt more than it has ever been hurt before, and are illegal and should be sued and she'd be in the right to do it, she actually means, "Hrmph, I wish people wouldn't do that," and when GRRM says, "Hrumph, I wish people would do that differently," he means that they are evil and bad and hurt his butt, etc.

[Balerion]

@Bobotron

Those things can't happen, no. I've seen many games set in "historical" time periods within fantasy or SF settings that have similar strictures, so I can't say we're unique in this. Players are free to work towards things that aren't contradictory to the set theme and canonical events (ETA: I realize I should add that you can work towards things that can't ultimately succeed, of course; players sometimes do that, even realizing that their character will fail, because it makes for a good story).

One aspect of this is simply the fact that doing otherwise means that soon enough only the players on the game will feel that the setting is familiar to them. If some prospective player, fresh off reading the books, learns we're a game set in the year 166AC but the king is not Baelor the Blessed but instead Hagar the Horrible of House Greyjoy, to understand why that's the case will take ignoring what they learned from reading the books and instead learning what is likely terribly complicated game history.

In a somewhat similar vein, the reason we have 2000+ characters in our database is so that there's a consistent family tree for everyone, which allows for greater consistency than the more usual "and here is the long-lost-brother we've never mentioned before' approach to things that games without roster systems have often ended up with. We place a deal of value on players having the feeling that they understand the time period, the setting, and the basics of their family without having it upended whenever someone else feels like.

[Bobotron]

@Balerion
Okay. That answers my questions, thank you.

[BetterJudgment]

@il-volpe said:

When people who've come from there talk about it (You may talk about 'Blood of Dragons' on 'Game of Bones' though I do try to discourage bash-sessions about it unless you're doing so in private or on the channel that's reserved for being rude) the usual word goes that they either cannot get a scene, or the RP is repetitive nobles-having-huffs-at-other-nobles + tourneys, or that the player in question has been verbally abused by the staff there and cannot stand it any more.

When I played on the game briefly early on (I think I was among the first people to create and play a non-CGed character), I swear that every IC post about current events ended with someone flouncing out of someone else's private apartment. It seems like a great game for people who create obsessively detailed characters that they talk about possessively and at length OOCly but are unable to do anything interesting with in actual scenes, probably because their imagination and creativity is entirely second-hand.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I never got farther than a Guest looking at the rosters on BoD, but I also remember the many 'Doors were slammed to Lord So-and-Sos Chamber' posts that seemed to take the place of interesting rumors. It was among the many, many things that induced me not to play.

[3543thrh67]

@Three-Eyed-Crow I got to the app process because my friend was there and the staffer I was talking to was really willing to help. I liked whomever it was. Forget the name now, though. I don't recall getting much from the other players but I could be wrong.

[il-volpe]

Actually, @Balerion, I've seen and played plenty of games that kept to a real world or imaginary world timeline and yet still allowed the PCs full agency. It does rather require that the GMs assume that not every interesting or important thing that ever happened in the world is included in the timeline you're following, though.

Edit: Oops, I missed the bit with Bal talking about skirmishes, castle-sackings, etc, and thought he meant that 'go to war' etc that Bobotron mentioned was stuff that could not happen. This post is totally not relevant.

[BigDaddyAmin]

@icanbeyourmuse said:

@Three-Eyed-Crow I got to the app process because my friend was there and the staffer I was talking to was really willing to help. I liked whomever it was. Forget the name now, though. I don't recall getting much from the other players but I could be wrong.

There are some helpful people on BoD. Missandei/Katla/Erena is a sweetheart. And I enjoyed roleplaying with Luthor (though his player isn't that active from what I can tell). The rest are sour and jaded old bitches or nerds from Elendor days of yore who are full of themselves..