What Types of Games Would People Like To See?
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@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Unpopular opinion: Generic CofD 2e game where the defining feature is that staff just kind of stay out of your way and let you play the game without metaplot or too much staff-lead politics and stuff. >.>
It's a fair opinion to have, but I have not seen this work in practice for longer than a few months.
I think in order for this to work, you still need to encourage play. In most recent WoD/CoD games this has been through metaplot, which is top-down. I think if you want a game that is bottom-up, it can still work and would perhaps work even better, but only if replace the time you'd spend planning an elaborate metaplot instead focusing on systems that encourage interaction and RP. I think you'd really have to heavily think about design and how/why characters would interact and how do you push them towards that. And I don't think that relieves the staff from having to put in plot seeds, they'd still need to give story reasons for players to interact, they just might be smaller, more personal stories.
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@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Unpopular opinion: Generic CofD 2e game where the defining feature is that staff just kind of stay out of your way and let you play the game without metaplot or too much staff-lead politics and stuff. >.>
It's a fair opinion to have, but I have not seen this work in practice for longer than a few months.
Isn't this basically Fallcoast? I don't think people want metaplot as much as they want stable, massive alt-friendly places they can just have their own thing going on and meet new people that suit their fancy. A WoD-flavored Second Life sorta thing, and I say that without any prejudice. Would.
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@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Unpopular opinion: Generic CofD 2e game where the defining feature is that staff just kind of stay out of your way and let you play the game without metaplot or too much staff-lead politics and stuff. >.>
It's a fair opinion to have, but I have not seen this work in practice for longer than a few months.
Then again most nWoD MU* don't last for longer than a few months, no matter how they are constructed. If I was counting activity in any other way than "the port is still up and staff+friends still log on" then the list would shrink even further.
I have specific reasons in mind causing it, mind you, but this thread isn't the place to go over it.
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I think there's definitely a good niche for minimally-staffed sandboxes, to provide a place for people to RP their own stories with just that touch of context. Moreover, the idea that they can't be successful is obviously wrong: the most successful MUs actually fall in this category (albeit plus sex, but let's be real that this is always an implicit attraction), and there have been more typical and smaller scale games that worked liked this. Calaveras comes to mind, and I think was pretty popular?
However, I think there are some particulars with WoD that clash with this. The game has an incredibly complicated CG and a ridiculously wide power curve that only gets worse with XP. It tends to involve 'active' settings with NPCs that require staffers. Can you really manage this with minimal staff oversight? I feel like you might need to do something drastic, like fixed XP, full consent, etc. Or else you're always going to need referees for snipers and telenukes.
Maybe don't actually do WoD, but do a generic Urban Fantasy (or WoD without the system) with something like FATE (as much as I always shit on FATE)?
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@Lisse24 said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Unpopular opinion: Generic CofD 2e game where the defining feature is that staff just kind of stay out of your way and let you play the game without metaplot or too much staff-lead politics and stuff. >.>
It's a fair opinion to have, but I have not seen this work in practice for longer than a few months.
I think in order for this to work, you still need to encourage play. In most recent WoD/CoD games this has been through metaplot, which is top-down. I think if you want a game that is bottom-up, it can still work and would perhaps work even better, but only if replace the time you'd spend planning an elaborate metaplot instead focusing on systems that encourage interaction and RP. I think you'd really have to heavily think about design and how/why characters would interact and how do you push them towards that. And I don't think that relieves the staff from having to put in plot seeds, they'd still need to give story reasons for players to interact, they just might be smaller, more personal stories.
So fun story, I think about Reno? I dunno.
For the like... two weeks I was active there, I was HELLA active there. I don't really recall if there was meta plot at the time...
What they did have were the Aspirations. Like full on 'get XPz for doing the thing' along with the quick squirt of happy brain juice that goes along with that.
Which I admit I maaaay have over-used/abused.
Literally every scene involved fulfilling a short-term aspiration, or work towards fulfilling a long-term aspiration.Then again... if you're not working towards these things, why have them at all? They are designed to be a roadmap for what sort of RP path you would like to follow. So if you have staff that reacts to these aspirations, plot-wise, and weaves them into a meta-plot, instead of writing their own and hoping the players engage it... that might be a thing?
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@Jennkryst said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Lisse24 said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Unpopular opinion: Generic CofD 2e game where the defining feature is that staff just kind of stay out of your way and let you play the game without metaplot or too much staff-lead politics and stuff. >.>
It's a fair opinion to have, but I have not seen this work in practice for longer than a few months.
I think in order for this to work, you still need to encourage play. In most recent WoD/CoD games this has been through metaplot, which is top-down. I think if you want a game that is bottom-up, it can still work and would perhaps work even better, but only if replace the time you'd spend planning an elaborate metaplot instead focusing on systems that encourage interaction and RP. I think you'd really have to heavily think about design and how/why characters would interact and how do you push them towards that. And I don't think that relieves the staff from having to put in plot seeds, they'd still need to give story reasons for players to interact, they just might be smaller, more personal stories.
So fun story, I think about Reno? I dunno.
For the like... two weeks I was active there, I was HELLA active there. I don't really recall if there was meta plot at the time...
What they did have were the Aspirations. Like full on 'get XPz for doing the thing' along with the quick squirt of happy brain juice that goes along with that.
Which I admit I maaaay have over-used/abused.
Literally every scene involved fulfilling a short-term aspiration, or work towards fulfilling a long-term aspiration.Then again... if you're not working towards these things, why have them at all? They are designed to be a roadmap for what sort of RP path you would like to follow. So if you have staff that reacts to these aspirations, plot-wise, and weaves them into a meta-plot, instead of writing their own and hoping the players engage it... that might be a thing?
The key here is to make Aspirations 1) quickly approved; 2) easy to fuilfill; 3) quick to be processed.
Honestly, if the process can be mosrtly automated it would be great. I actually though about doing that once upona time. Like: pitching an Aspiration and getting it approved for play were automated and then, once you fulfilled it and put in for your XP, staff had X days (I think it was 3 for me) to approve or deny (some people will try to game the system) or it would be automatically approved and the system would just give you your XP.
So staff can basically just scan Asps and pluck out anything fishy without having to go through each one.
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@SunnyJ said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Isn't this basically Fallcoast? I don't think people want metaplot as much as they want stable, massive alt-friendly places they can just have their own thing going on and meet new people that suit their fancy. A WoD-flavored Second Life sorta thing, and I say that without any prejudice. Would.
This was what Dark Metal was, too. It was popular, I'll give it that. I'm not sure that this is the kind of popularity people want nowadays.
I think nowadays people want a game where the playerbase itself is curated by staffers, keeping out the killjoys and trolls.
I think @Coin starts hitting on what starts being required when you add the TTRPG elements to it. Minimal staffing is the goal that WoD games need to push toward that most other games never had to worry about.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain I understand that desire, but... that doesn't tell me much. There are so many tribes in MUSHing that this is basically a way of saying 'People want to play with people they like'.
There are people who cannot stand anyone who doesn't play to theme.
There are people who cannot stand anyone who talks politics on OOC Rooms (fuck people who do this btw).
There are people who cannot stand anyone who has pretty wikis, or who talks in OOC, or who picks PB X or Order Y. Desc too much? Hate. Desc too little? Hate. Purple prose? Fuck you. TS? Oh, you lowly beast! It goes on forever. This community is nitpicky af.
Who is this magical staff who will have a healthy game, but can keep out "killjoys" and trolls? It is all way too idiosyncratic in my opinion, so I go with how things have always been: keep out the people who are universally reviled (Rex and co) and have a big enough game that people who hate each other don't have to interact with each other and can still have fun.
This is basically the MU community anyway.
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You're preaching to the choir, but in trying to read the room that's what people here seem to be saying and upvoting the most often. I do keep in mind that we--Soapbox--are a large but not majority population of the Mu* world right now, Soapbox is our audience for this discussion.
That's not to say that I don't think there are ways to make it happen:
- Staff must be clear as to the intent of the game.
- All of their actions should support that intent. (Within reason; even rational humans can create toxic situations.)
It helps if you already have a circle of people to start the game; people who will support the game culture so you don't have to build it from scratch.
But yes, it comes down to "I want to enjoy my time on this game", which is unhelpful but is also a truism. What you enjoy will dictate what kind of game you want to play, but there are not infinite choices and so threads like this one are put forth to get the temperature of the room.
Someone doesn't want to spend time making a character for a game that will have little chance integrating with the game might ask, "What character types are needed?" (Or check a census, or whatever.) This isn't usually to follow what's dictated, but to get a feel for things.
If you're going to spend a lot of time making a game for people you don't know, you're going to want to know what kind of things they want to play as a part of deciding if you want to put in the effort.
Because our time is also much more finite since we were kids. And so I'm going to rate "staff who maintain the game culture" as critical. Even if that culture is "steel-fisted wacky-ass".
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@Coin I've been playing with the idea of a peer-confirmed process. So you complete an asp, it publishes to the room, people then confirm that it happened or not.
This would:
a) Take staff mostly out of the equation and make it more automatic
b) Increasing overall use of the system by reminding those players that tend to forget about asps that they exist and they should be fulfilling them
c) Feeding player creativity and empowerment by exposing them to a wide variety of potential asps that would serve as inspiration.Could this be abused? Sure. Anything could be abused, but I think we design for the game and players we want and then deal quickly and harshly with those who try to game the system.
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@bored said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I think there's definitely a good niche for minimally-staffed sandboxes, to provide a place for people to RP their own stories with just that touch of context. Moreover, the idea that they can't be successful is obviously wrong: the most successful MUs actually fall in this category (albeit plus sex, but let's be real that this is always an implicit attraction), and there have been more typical and smaller scale games that worked liked this. Calaveras comes to mind, and I think was pretty popular?
Honestly, I wish there were more original/low-theme games that were semi-sandbox. Something like Calaveras but with just a little more staff oversight.
I had a lot of fun on Calaveras and still think Jack & Sally did a great job creating a "safe" space for people to RP. The issue with a 100% sandbox game, though, is that there's no one steering the ship, and you wind up with things becoming canon just 'cause someone RPed about it first. So you basically have players making decisions that impact the world, and there's no one to course-correct when it's just ludicrous.
I know a lot of people, myself included, who would enjoy another place that didn't require a bunch of theme knowledge (so was modern/original theme rather than based on an existing IP), didn't have a lot of hoops to jump through for running PrPs, had a quick turnaround time for approval, and had staff around to provide cohesiveness.
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@Lisse24 said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Coin I've been playing with the idea of a peer-confirmed process. So you complete an asp, it publishes to the room, people then confirm that it happened or not.
This is brilliant.
I'd be happy to fold the functionality into my Asp code or help you work it out if that's the one you're using.
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@Jennkryst said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
What they did have were the Aspirations. Like full on 'get XPz for doing the thing' along with the quick squirt of happy brain juice that goes along with that.
Which I admit I maaaay have over-used/abused.
Literally every scene involved fulfilling a short-term aspiration, or work towards fulfilling a long-term aspiration.This isn't abusing the system.
This is what the system is fucking for. The Aspiration system provides something for your PC to do. It is quite frankly one of the best systems for online play, especially on MU*s that would otherwise be sandboxes. Staff can watch out for over-abuse, but also allow incentives for activity by letting the reins go.
The only thing I liked more was Requiem for Kingsmouth's beat system, but that requires an awful lot of staff-power to maintain.
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The two issues I had with asps:
people who would set a long-term to something utterly unachievable. ('Get the Nobel Peace Prize') and when I would try to explain no, that's not what a long-term is, they'd have a pissy fit and then I'd shrug and be like 'your funeral' and later they'd come back and have a fit because 'omggggg why is everyone else getting long-term asps and I'm nooooooot'. Well buddy I tried to help you.'
And I always felt like there should maybe be a cap on how many you could earn in a week. Because some people do have an easier time coming up with short-terms than others, so it was absolutely skewed towards the guy who could churn out 'smile at pretty girl' 'hi5 someone' 'sway my hips' 'read a newspaper' 'play a video game' and fifty others in the course of one week...
and the people who would go:
'Have coffee with a friend.'
'Get to use one of my powers.'
...and focus on character growth vs 'what two things can I guarantee I will do the next time I RP so I get XP?'Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
The two issues I had with asps:
people who would set a long-term to something utterly unachievable. ('Get the Nobel Peace Prize') and when I would try to explain no, that's not what a long-term is, they'd have a pissy fit and then I'd shrug and be like 'your funeral' and later they'd come back and have a fit because 'omggggg why is everyone else getting long-term asps and I'm nooooooot'. Well buddy I tried to help you.'
See previous comments about not catering to very stupid people, and how very stupid people do not make a system broken or undesirable because stupid is as stupid does, Lt. Dan.
And I always felt like there should maybe be a cap on how many you could earn in a week.
Hence, RfK's policy, where you could only get a certain number of beats every cycle for a particular kind of activity, including meeting or fulfilling short- and long-term aspirations.
“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 What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
The two issues I had with asps:
people who would set a long-term to something utterly unachievable. ('Get the Nobel Peace Prize') and when I would try to explain no, that's not what a long-term is, they'd have a pissy fit and then I'd shrug and be like 'your funeral' and later they'd come back and have a fit because 'omggggg why is everyone else getting long-term asps and I'm nooooooot'. Well buddy I tried to help you.'
See previous comments about not catering to very stupid people, and how very stupid people do not make a system broken or undesirable because stupid is as stupid does, Lt. Dan.
And I always felt like there should maybe be a cap on how many you could earn in a week.
Hence, RfK's policy, where you could only get a certain number of beats every cycle for a particular kind of activity, including meeting or fulfilling short- and long-term aspirations.
I think it boils down to:
aspirations are not very well explained.I didn't understand them until I was staff and the light-bulb went off.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I didn't understand them until I was staff and the light-bulb went off.
Fair.
I should probably explain RfK's system for those who didn't play on it. You requested beats every week based on your activity. After every scene, or whenever, you make a claim for a 'type' of beat, be it social scenes, in furtherance of aspirations, etc. And at the end of the week, Shav would review the requests and award the beats. There was a cap as to how many of each kind you could get every week.
When you start to hit certain benchmarks, such as 250, the number of beats necessary to get an XP went up. This meant that PCs with more XP would have to go out and play more in order to claim beats and match the XP growth of newer PCs. I recall that the benchmarks were basically every 250 beats. So if you had 1,000 beats, it cost 9 beats to get 1 XP, whereas it cost only 5 beats if your XP was less than or equal to 250.
As far as I could tell, the system worked. New PCs could get close to the older PCs, but older PCs could keep ahead if they were more active. That pushed the older PCs to get out and RP more often, which is sometimes not the case on other games. It was a stroke of genius, in my opinion, but the system required a lot of staff maintenance to run.
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@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
'Get the Nobel Peace Prize'
Why is this a bad long-term Aspiration? You get Beats for it when you work toward it, which is the goal of a long-term Aspiration. That it's not good for a Mush is a different issue.
It's probably not great for a tabletop, but the ST will see this and plan around it. Or not. It's their funeral.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
'Get the Nobel Peace Prize'
Why is this a bad long-term Aspiration? You get Beats for it when you work toward it, which is the goal of a long-term Aspiration. That it's not good for a Mush is a different issue.
It's probably not great for a tabletop, but the ST will see this and plan around it. Or not. It's their funeral.
This is one of those: for the fuck of everything theno can you just appreciate that I was trying to come up with something off the top of my head and didn't want to spend half an hour thinking of something you weren't going to nitpick?
clearly you understand the point I was getting at
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Thenomain said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
'Get the Nobel Peace Prize'
Why is this a bad long-term Aspiration? You get Beats for it when you work toward it, which is the goal of a long-term Aspiration. That it's not good for a Mush is a different issue.
It's probably not great for a tabletop, but the ST will see this and plan around it. Or not. It's their funeral.
clearly you understand the point I was getting at
I didn't mean it as a nitpick, but rather explain. Once I understood that long-term Aspirations gave beats for moving toward them, then whether or not they're attainable becomes much more moot. Also how easy it is to drop an aspiration to pick up another is also a consideration.
What I'd look at in Aspirations is whether or not it's a reasonable motivator for the character at table. You might tell someone with
Nobel Peace Prize, "Look, that's going to involve a lot of off-screen work. The game isn't about Mundane Politics or the World Stage. Plus, figuring out events that trigger this Aspiration could be vague at best."If they still don't get it then as Gany said, shrug and move on.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
