What Types of Games Would People Like To See?
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Man, I gotta say, I side with @Herja here, pretty hard.
Nothing matters if the players don't care about it. Mechanics, system, all that is there to facilitate or guide the narrative. Some people may only want to play a certain narrative because it uses a certain system or code or whatever, but that doesn't mean that the real value isn't on the narrative. If people don't care about the story, they aren't going to play it, no matter how cool the system is.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin Agreed. I'll play any codebase if the story grabs me. And none if it doesn't. I prefer codebases that emphasise roleplaying and writing over experience grinding and gold chasing, but I think I lost the right to complain about non-roleplay-oriented systems about at the time I did a five year stint as a guild leader on a WoW roleplay server.
http://keys.aresmush.com -- Come to Chincoteague, we have ponies.
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@L-B-Heuschkel said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Coin Agreed. I'll play any codebase if the story grabs me. And none if it doesn't. I prefer codebases that emphasise roleplaying and writing over experience grinding and gold chasing, but I think I lost the right to complain about non-roleplay-oriented systems about at the time I did a five year stint as a guild leader on a WoW roleplay server.
I mean, sometimes a system will kill your interest in even the most interesting story and sometimes the most interesting story will override your dislike of a system, but in the end, it's the story.
If what you're looking for in your RP can only be represented by system or code and cannot, by the power of imagination and cooperation simply be accepted as existing and being important within the narrative, then you are playing an OOC game.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin Yes. Very much yes. In case of my WoW example, story and RP was done in spite of the system and code. Which goes to prove that somehow, idiots like me are willing to play a game company for access to their servers, to play a game they don't even offer.
I left that community as it gradually dissolved into an alt-right recruiting ground, but my point remains. Players will endure any game mechanics if they're hooked on story and community (and bail when either of them fail).
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@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Man, I gotta say, I side with @Herja here, pretty hard.
I concur.
I think the question then becomes "how do we make players care?" I think the easiest way is to have game mechanics to reward players for engaging; it's a little harder on games that do not have symbolic shinies. That said, it's really nifty to play on a game where the "leader" is someone who is facilitating RP, giving PCs something to do with their existences, and actively trying to make every players' experience on the game better.
That's how I get invested in games, to be honest.
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This conversation is something I've been mulling over a lot. I think for myself I've forgotten the core concept. Humans respond to incentives. So the question that I see sort of circulating here is what incentives drive our community. I know we WANT to believe that the incentives of good story and the like are what drive it; but if we're genuinely honest with ourselves is that really enough?
So in concept of What types of Games? I would like to see a game that provides players with incentives to play and be invested. Theme and setting is all well and good. We could take any single one of these concepts that are suggested and put up a blank server with a few dug out rooms and it'd be done. So what are people really after?
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@Paradox said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Theme and setting is all well and good. We could take any single one of these concepts that are suggested and put up a blank server with a few dug out rooms and it'd be done.
Many of the places I have played through the years had Zero system. The reward was positions of power which meant driving the story/RP/meta. Having a +crown and +economy to spend some coins on the great road works for some, having the crown only in story and the power to shape the economy to make the great road works as well. Both require player buy-in to theme.
I was speaking with someone here lately about the change from grid wandering and meeting folks to build connections when we were younger to the current +events and scheduling. We wondered if part of the decline is that there is no 'in' for younger folks with more time to enjoy the things we enjoyed when we started (grid RP and happenstance RP where game STs could drop random story on anyone in public). This may tie in, maybe, to a drive or want for coded incentives?
Not saying one is better than the other but the things I always enjoyed seem to be on the 'outside' lately; system-lite or systemless MUSHing, random RP, building relationship over time not just in pages to work out backstory.
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@Paradox said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I know we WANT to believe that the incentives of good story and the like are what drive it; but if we're genuinely honest with ourselves is that really enough?
Yes. If you're looking for more incentive than having fun telling a good story with other people, my games are not for you. And that's fine. Not every game is meant for every player. I don't like code-heavy games because they tend to stifle story too much for my tastes. That doesn't mean they're bad, they're just not for me. Just as WoW wasn't for me because I couldn't care less about doing this endless grind to get my character better gear just so I could... grind some more for even better gear? That is SO not my thing. Yet it has millions of players who do just that.
Just as movies don't generally find success picking "all humans" as their target audience, games shouldn't try either.
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That's exactly where I'm sitting too. I personally prefer narrative based story telling, but even in that mindset the incentive for story telling has to be present. I think that is the area I'm working through mentally with @auspice, developing the structures that promote narrative adventuring for the playerbase and keeps them engaged with it while not relying so heavily on Admin structured instigation that it burns us out.
I'm not sure such a thing can happen, but it doesn't mean there's a cessation of attempts.
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@Paradox said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I'm not sure such a thing can happen, but it doesn't mean there's a cessation of attempts.
It can but it requires enough buy-in to theme/setting by the players that enjoy system-less/lite play. It needs ooc structure in place (OOC heads of orgs to help run things, or STs as we like to say now, and how IC leadership and transition is managed OOCly).
There is sort of a trail of heavy coded MUSH/non-MUD that I sort of follow relative to political type games outside of like WoD; again this is my flow chart only. Crossroads was 15+ years back (2K to mid decade as it dwindled out) ~scramble of a few years~ then Firan and now Arx.
During the time at the end of Crossroads and the beginning of Firan was Redemption. It was a codeless (literally codeless outside of bg and some finger info, no sheets, and minimal BG to show familiarity with its unique theme: it was a Political/clan/house building place (it was future fantasy, low-tech fantasy people with no real magic come to future place/ruins). It was medium size at best with 80-100 unique log-ins on any given day, with 120+ chars on (included staff and alts), and I left before it got al little more popular. It was meant as politics, but its lack of control of the politics (turnover of IC leadership and paths to get there) left some bad apples in place (ie: I'm not giving up my position ever, and since I have OOC control of this group ...). It was on the precipice of being more popular but caved in before fully set up, it was in real beta testing to get the OOC stuff in-line after a popular alpha phase of invite only that got half the initial player base.
It can be done, but it needs buy-in.
ETA: Codeless/finger info stuff
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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Self reply instead of edit cause its a weighty addition:
ETA Redux: Just for recent information. We did Pendragon in what, 2015'ish? All I had was a character sheet, no political code, it had 100+ unique IPs and was averaging 60 players a day for a bit there. The politics were all non-code with the way the houses were set up, if OOC over site was more in place for estate running that would have helped with some of the drama. It could have been tested and better ready but wasn't counting on popularity. Not to say its a good venture but shows want for RP driven story and content is still there. Fifth Kingdom reached 50+ unique log-ins in its second month before that dwindled. There is want for it, I believe it needs enough staff to help, outlining politics and how to get positions of power is one of several other things that would help. I think one thing possibly effecting this is most people who can set up a place are running in silos/small groups instead of combining for one place and that's probably a want for various themes instead of just a place to tell stories together?
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Best political RP I ever had was on Redemption, hands down. Turning the water off for a province or w/e they were called was one hell of a move. I will say that maybe after you left? There were spreadsheets everywhere keeping track of economy and resources and soldiers and things. So many spreadsheets.
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@Sunny Did someone say spreadsheets? Bahgawd, that's EVE Online's music!
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I have at least one google doc still bookmarked somewhere, because I was going to use it as a template for another project so Precisi stuck it somewhere for me. Involved. Very involved.
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@Sunny said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Best political RP I ever had was on Redemption, hands down. Turning the water off for a province or w/e they were called was one hell of a move. I will say that maybe after you left? There were spreadsheets everywhere keeping track of economy and resources and soldiers and things. So many spreadsheets.
The spreadsheets to begin with would have helped the original head staffer bring out their vision more. The RP was good politically. I was brought in pre-alpha and did all the work on Czeryn, the warrior group, we build a lot of history with Shield/iron tech group. I started as the IC leader of the group but really, I was all about letting someone else take control, just some of the folks were less willing to give that up on the back end.
Without getting too far into the politics that turned me away, my favorite thing on a Mu ever was after I left and they let the one group have the large civil war. I did come back as one of the nutter dreamer people and screwed with a lot of the facheads for a little bit (the ones that didn't realize my IP and who I played before) they had some fun with that I think.
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There's a little bit more buy in when the piece of code that the Queen of the Realm has is the /execution command, causing someone to die in 10 days unless she is killed first, or maybe the /treasury command which gives her total control of the coins produced every month and she can dole them out as she sees fit to her subjects with the game eating coins from people every month, and, if you don't have enough coins for Cron, your character starves and dies.
@Lotherio said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
There is sort of a trail of heavy coded MUSH/non-MUD that I sort of follow relative to political type games outside of like WoD; again this is my flow chart only. Crossroads was 15+ years back (2K to mid decade as it dwindled out) ~scramble of a few years~ then Firan and now Arx.
It's funny you mention Crossroads, because that's the game where I reached the conclusion that you need mechanical backing for politics and intrigue. I had someone approach me about negotiating a trade deal between our respective lordships. It was the most boring scene I have ever had, because we were negotiating over nothing. We could have called the items we were talking about widgets and doodads for all that it mattered and whatever numbers we wanted to throw out there were equally valid, because with undefined amounts, we had infinite amounts of the goods. What I should have done is traded an infinite amount out of my infinite amount of goods to all the other lordships in exchange for an infinite amount of their infinite amount of goods and then settled down in my nice, boring post-scarcity lordship.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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Yeah, I'm way more interested in narrative buy-in than I am in code-enforced "buy-in". Personal preference, but that sounds like a nightmare to me, and I love system heavy games.
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Were you on Denver by Night when I ran the changeling sphere? I look back at that as a good example of where narrative buy-in kept activity going.
We had titles. We had intrigue. We had letter-writing. And it would have been a lot easier if we had +requests to track rather than using a combination of @mail and +bbposts.
“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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Yeah, I was around. It was a lot of fun, and lord yes some of today's code would've made a lot of stuff easier. Sigh.
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Since everyone seems more on the narrative side of games, I am shocked that games are still using a framework created by MUD which was aping Colossal Cave Adventure's system, which was like 95% mechanics and 5% narrative. If you're wanting narrative games, why have we not started looking at all of the developments in the past decade with storygames aka Narrativist RPGs? Where's the telnet version of Kingdom, Microscope, Our Last Best Hope, Nobilis, Mystic Empyrean, or Dread?
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
