Big city grids - likes and dislikes
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@ganymede said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Sunny and I are old. Really, fucking old. Like, I ain't lying, I think as quickly as zefrank narrates sometimes, no bullshit.
Hey, this is the game dev section, NO INSULTS.
(this is a joke.)
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@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Yeah sorry, I don't get it. The Holodeck is by it's very nature ICly fake.
Oooh! I think I can shed some light on this part of it... I don't believe that @Ganymede et al are using the Ten Forward/Holodeck 1 example as an IC example, but rather what it's like on an OOC level. For them it's the difference between going into a room that is always the same thing, and a room that can be whatever you want it to be... since one of them is wildly changeable, it doesn't OOCly feel as real to them as the room that is always the same (unless changed by IC events).
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@seraphim73 said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Yeah sorry, I don't get it. The Holodeck is by it's very nature ICly fake.
Oooh! I think I can shed some light on this part of it... I don't believe that @Ganymede et al are using the Ten Forward/Holodeck 1 example as an IC example, but rather what it's like on an OOC level. For them it's the difference between going into a room that is always the same thing, and a room that can be whatever you want it to be... since one of them is wildly changeable, it doesn't OOCly feel as real to them as the room that is always the same (unless changed by IC events).
YES.
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@seraphim73 Yeah the lack of permanence means it's difficult to refer to things that other characters should contextually know, which impacts RP.
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@ganymede said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Why was there a Head in the ship on BSG:U?
Because when I made the first grid for BSG:Pacifica I thought it would be a fun persistent "hangout" location based on how often it actually came up in the show. Then people actually used it and it kind of became 'a thing' on Battlestar games that followed. In contrast, I don't think ST:TNG really had scenes in the bathroom.
@ganymede said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
So, maybe it ain't even a culture thing. It could just be an age thing.
Dunno. I've been MUSHing since the early '90s so... that's pretty old too.
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@apos I tend to put that sort of stuff into scene-setting:
"After the brawl here the other night, there are a dozen metal folding chairs from the church down the block scattered at the now-crooked and battered tables across from the bar..."
And I do that in permanent rooms as well as scene rooms, because that sort of context is always necessary, no matter if the room is on the grid or not.
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@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Because when I made the first grid for BSG:Pacifica I thought it would be a fun persistent "hangout" location based on how often it actually came up in the show. Then people actually used it and it kind of became 'a thing' on Battlestar games that followed.
Right. I get that.
So, who gets to determine if a location is a fun, persistent "hangout"? The firing range didn't get nearly as much fun-time as Erin's bunk, trust me. And that was very much a hangout, along with Charlie's. But we had a firing range because you put one in.
I think, maybe, what some gamers like is, on an OOC level, the idea of having some sort of IC "hangout", as a concept, that's permanently stuck on the Grid. And since the early days of yore, players have wanted these for their PCs. Thus, they like to @dig rooms, and thereby make their mark for future generations.
I dunno, I'm just speculating at this point.
Dunno. I've been MUSHing since the early '90s so... that's pretty old too.
So that's the problem! Lemme get some Ben-Gay for you, it'll be all better.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
So, who gets to determine if a location is a fun, persistent "hangout"? The firing range didn't get nearly as much fun-time as Erin's bunk, trust me. And that was very much a hangout, along with Charlie's. But we had a firing range because you put one in.
I think, maybe, what some gamers like is, on an OOC level, the idea of having some sort of IC "hangout", as a concept, that's permanently stuck on the Grid. And since the early days of yore, players have wanted these for their PCs. Thus, they like to @dig rooms, and thereby make their mark for future generations.In grid terms, the person building the grid decides what constitutes a 'hangout'. These days typically that's staff.
In a temproom/scene system, the people creating scenes there decide what constitutes a 'hangout'. If you're constantly doing scene/start with a location of "Erin's Apartment" (bunk is a little hard for the analogy here :)) and an open scene that people can join - then that's gonna become a hangout too because people are hanging out there. It will in time develop the same sort of continuity that a grid room does. You can save a desc that gets reused, and update that desc when Charlie accidentally sets the couch on fire. And people will say "LOL remember the time that Charlie accidentally set the couch on fire?"
I dunno - to me that actually gives players more opportunity to make their mark on the future generations, compared to the "only staff can build" mentality of most modern MUSHes.
But I get that I'm in the minority there, apparently. Just rambling since you asked.
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@seraphim73 said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
I think it's important to remember that just because you've never RPed there, that doesn't mean that your character's never been there.
But it doesn't mean I have either. One of the things I hate most about fiction is when location A that hasn't appeared until now is there and suddenly important complete with characters talking about old times there, to tie into the immersion thing nothing breaks my immersion in any media faster than that, because I have watched the last seasons or read the previous books so I know that new place being important is a fabrication for this plot. And unlike other media where I in the audience have no say in RP I will definitely not go with the flow.
Edit: I think to me things become important because of the work put into them. I can say my character went to place X every day of his life, that can be an IC fact but unless I have done RP there that place will not be important to me on an OOC level so no matter how important it might be to the character I the player do not care about the place because nothing has been earned.
Almost all of my PCs have jobs, but most are the standard jobs that no one rps out, because they are uninteresting. Unless something has created an on screen tie the PCs favorite restaurant is like the PCs place of employment, very important IC but not worth any actual RP effort on OOC. -
@thatguythere said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Unless something has created an on screen tie the PCs favorite restaurant is like the PCs place of employment, very important IC but not worth any actual RP effort on OOC.
This is exactly what I'm saying (I think). If Momma's Diner burns down on-screen, why not add a factoid that your character liked to have breakfast there to create a tie-in to the RP thread? If you didn't know your character's favorite restaurant before, why not say that it was Momma's?
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Trying to steer the discussion back to likes and dislikes about big city grids - so if you have a game with a big city setting, and there is a grid, what shape do you like/dislike?
The two I've seen is the old fashioned cardinal directions (or equivalent - east/west/south/north or downtown/uptown/river etc) and every room can be played in, OR the tree branch model where you have larger rooms meant to only act as a kind of joint for the rooms that there's actual RP in. Like 'New York' from which you can get to the specific areas. I feel they both have their pros and cons but am curious what other people think, and if there's other models you've seen that you prefer/really disliked and never want to see again, etc.
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@seraphim73
I think the issue we are miscommunicating a bit, my issue is not that my character has not reason to care, I can come up with that it is that I the player have no reason to care.
If I have five or six scenes in a place it start to become important to the story. Without that Momma's diner becomes to me, the player exactly, the same as the old drama trope of previously unknown past lover showing up in a drama only to be a villain or dead by the episodes end and has the same impact, I don't care about random character invented for the plot and whatever reaction the writers wanted to elicit fails completely because there is no reason to ever invest in the soon to be gone character. -
@kay I'm not sure if this falls under the 'tree' model but I really dislike grid rooms within grid rooms. And by that I mean if you go to South Central Bumfuck and then there's an exit to Main Street which then has the buildings and houses and such. I can never remember how to get anywhere.
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@kay said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Trying to steer the discussion back to likes and dislikes about big city grids - so if you have a game with a big city setting, and there is a grid, what shape do you like/dislike?
Like: Comma.
Dislike: Period with two spaces after it.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
@kay said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Trying to steer the discussion back to likes and dislikes about big city grids - so if you have a game with a big city setting, and there is a grid, what shape do you like/dislike?
Like: Comma.
Dislike: Period with two spaces after it.
For grids I personally prefer all caps with three exclamation points, the description equivalent of the Brutalist architecture for when you want to feel like a room would murder you if only it could move.
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@kay said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
@thenomain said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
@kay said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:
Trying to steer the discussion back to likes and dislikes about big city grids - so if you have a game with a big city setting, and there is a grid, what shape do you like/dislike?
Like: Comma.
Dislike: Period with two spaces after it.
For grids I personally prefer all caps with three exclamation points, the description equivalent of the Brutalist architecture for when you want to feel like a room would murder you if only it could move.
Having all-caps with three exclamation points, it has succeeded at stabbing me well and truly in my Strunk & White. It may be fatal.
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@thatguythere I do indeed believe that we're failing to communicate. Or, perhaps, we just have opposed points of view and that's fine. You feel the need to have prior RP setting something up (if I'm not mistaking your point now), I'm fine assuming the events happened off-screen and using them to build story going forward and hook my character into ongoing plot.
I do agree with you that inventing NPCs or locations just to kill/destroy them in an attempt to garner a reaction from PCs usually falls flat unless the players want their characters to feel the impact, in which case they can certainly create reasons to feel it.
