MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't)

[SquirrelTalk]

@de-villefort Dude, they're telling you to set up your social scenes so they HAVE a purpose. Talk with the other player about what you'd like to accomplish. Don't just go in with an order for a number three combo meal and a bad attitude. Put together scenes that make sense.

[Grayson]

I frequently have random conversations on busses and trains. Most often, when the damn thing's broken down, or when traffic is just that hideous, or when the bus has to go a different way because there's been a crash on the main road and nothing's getting past.

I rarely have conversations in McDonalds, but if the milkshake machine's broken it's pretty much guaranteed.

People like to moan and share their grumbles with others affected.

I'll also greet anyone wearing a heavy metal T-shirt, or anyone carrying something to do with a hobby of mine, or anyone reading the right genre of book but not seeming entirely engrossed in it, or someone older who's dyed their hair bright colours, etc., and that greeting is either the start of a conversation or just an acknowledgement of someone else's humanity depending on them. Either I have things in common with those people or they've done something they want to talk about, and a conversation is always more interesting than not if they want one - and they usually do. I've made a good friend with 'I love the hair', and a few more with 'Great book, is this your first time reading it?'.

And then there's the times I'm sitting on the bus or train with handwork, and people will start talking with me about what I'm doing and why and who it's for and who they used to do that for and all the stuff they've made, and it's glorious, especially when children sit there wide-eyed and curious and bouncy over a new thing while granny smiles.

Life is as boring as you make it. It seems some people have very boring lives.

[Groth]

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

"Coffee shop" rp (AKA rp amongst yourselves) should be at least half of your rp on a game. Otherwise, you probably aren't roleplaying a character so much as playing the world's crappiest video game.

I make something of a distinction between what we could call 'social rp' and 'coffee shop' RP.

To me social RP is primarily about getting to know the other characters and exploring the interactions they have with my own character and the enjoyment I derive from those interactions is often the primary reason I play MU*.

However 'coffee shop' RP often takes place in a literal bar or coffee shop and has a habit of leading people to the most boring interactions possible.Often the RP is just rote poses about ordering/consuming whatever and talking empty platitudes. It's possible to make these scenes interesting(The article linked in this thread is great) but it takes more effort since you have to break the pattern and introduce something the rest want to interact with.

I'm tempted to suggest it might be good policy to not have any generic bar/coffee rooms on a game grid as a way to guide people towards doing something more interesting as their 'default' scene.

[3543thrh67]

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

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

"Coffee shop" rp (AKA rp amongst yourselves) should be at least half of your rp on a game. Otherwise, you probably aren't roleplaying a character so much as playing the world's crappiest video game.

I make something of a distinction between what we could call 'social rp' and 'coffee shop' RP.

To me social RP is primarily about getting to know the other characters and exploring the interactions they have with my own character and the enjoyment I derive from those interactions is often the primary reason I play MU*.

However 'coffee shop' RP often takes place in a literal bar or coffee shop and has a habit of leading people to the most boring interactions possible.Often the RP is just rote poses about ordering/consuming whatever and talking empty platitudes. It's possible to make these scenes interesting(The article linked in this thread is great) but it takes more effort since you have to break the pattern and introduce something the rest want to interact with.

I'm tempted to suggest it might be good policy to not have any generic bar/coffee rooms on a game grid as a way to guide people towards doing something more interesting as their 'default' scene.

But then you're isolating out people who /do/ like that 'boring' coffee shop play. I know a lot of people who do like to go to a bar or restaurant or whatever and chat about nothing. Not everyone wants to do scenes all the time that has some big purpose. sometimes they spent a whole day doing a thing that has a purpose (push plot along and so on) that they just want to go have casual play that likely will do nothing more than have them meet new people/hang out with people just because.

It really just comes down to letting people play what they enjoy (provided it is within the theme of the game) and directing them to people of similar tastes.

[mietze]

The reality is on many games unless you come in with a group of people you know, the way you build connections is usually via social rp (most places i know of and all the ones I play require largely that player be able to sustain themselves as while staff does run things on a regular if not frequent basis, they do not have the coverage to take care of all individuals with meaty/"important" scenes.

So if you go in behaving in a way that makes everyone around you feel as if you believe you are too good for/too above them to dip your toes into "silly/meaningless" scenes where you might connect with them then chances are you will become increasingly isolated if you are pragmatically dependent on PrPs run by those waste of space players or hooks in to other things.

It sounds to me like you are not feeling creative enough to find an angle to get engaged in the rp that's available to you. I think most of us have been there at one point or another. But you lashing out and blaming your lack of RP on other people and their inferior sense of fun is misplaced.

On a low staff involvement/access game chances are a majority of people feel frustrated. And like they are lacking in the RP that would feel most meaningful to them. They are just making the best of things, and apparently are more equipped than you right now to do so.

[Lotherio]

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

It's possible to make these scenes interesting(The article linked in this thread is great) but it takes more effort since you have to break the pattern and introduce something the rest want to interact with

This isn't limited to absolute social where nothing is advanced RP (character/story/whatever).

If I'm getting nothing interesting in combat, I'm likely not to combat again with that person. If the code indicates John hit the monster with his sword and his pose is, 'John swings his sword at the goblin it bites and blood flows, he moves to swing again', well that's as exciting as the social entrance of, 'John enters the room orders a drink doesn't look at anyone and sits in the corner alone'.

RP takes effort, regardless if its all combat or all social or everything in between. Want of one doesn't invalidate the other or others interest in doing just that.

[Ominous]

The thread is called "MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't)" not "Let's Argue About BaRP." Time to keep this thread from getting completely derailed.

Esoterrorists, the SCP universe, and Unknown Armies meet the Mouseguard RPG and Symbaroum. PCs belong to a Jedi-like order of mage-knights who go around escorting merchants, investigating mystical happenings, slaying monsters both mundane and arcane, and rooting out evil cultist plots. The investigative skills in the GUMSHOE system that Esoterrorists uses would have to be changed to reflect the less advanced technology levels, but I think Symbaroum's mastery system would combine well with it.

The problem with this idea is that it would be very storyteller intensive. All of the missions would require someone running them.

[Lotherio]

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

Mouseguard RPG

Anything small verse. Mouseguard, Humblewood, WatershipDown, anything where the meadow woods is actually a big scary, mystical, magic place. Jedi like small knights (mice, gnomes, etc) escorting merchants through the bog of pure evil sounds good, fending of the croc mounted Badgers or evil gnomes or whatever. Its something I started to make but was dissuaded from it cause no one wants to play small things.

[Too Old For This]

@lotherio I will probably catch flak for this but... Rock-A-Doodle? It was a silly kids movie but I always liked the setting and the idea that people could end up being sucked into it, turned into mice and things.

[Ominous]

@lotherio

I would go with humans. 'Small verse," while flavorful, has the stigma of being furry-adjacent, if not just plain furry. I guess you could use halfling sized people instead of humans, which would effectively double the size of the world in relation, but I think you can translate "small verse" to full-sized humans. Just replace a snake in Mouseguard with a giant snake for humans. Replace owls with wyverns or dragons. If you want your forests to have giant trees, Redwoods are a thing, so just make your fantastical redwoods fantastically larger.

[Lotherio]

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

@lotherio

I would go with humans. 'Small verse," while flavorful, has the stigma of being furry-adjacent, if not just plain furry. I guess you could use halfling sized people instead of humans, which would effectively double the size of the world in relation, but I think you can translate "small verse" to full-sized humans. Just replace a snake in Mouseguard with a giant snake for humans. Replace owls with wyverns or dragons. If you want your forests to have giant trees, Redwoods are a thing, so just make your fantastical redwoods fantastically larger.

This is good. Just, for me, it just feels like fantasy in that case, no reason to refer to any small-verse theme/setting/etc.. Its not small verse if its not the eagle attacking that feels like a roc or the snake that feels like a dragon. I know its furry-adjacent and there is a stigma associated with that term and concept. I'm not opposed to that but get that folks would use it inappropriately, or feel uncomfortable and more ... its the reason I did not do small-verse (it was gnomes) or the Zootopia concept.

[Ominous]

@lotherio

I refer to Mouseguard RPG both for the design of its order - a group of mice knights who go around doing Jedi type things - and for its feel - insignificant people trying to survive in a giant, merciless world. You can get the same feeling with zombies, apocalyptic scenarios, and Cthulhu-esque settings, but zombies has the problems of needing zombies, which I have always found boring and are now thankfully overdone so other people finally agree; apocalyptic scenarios go too far, feeling hopeless and bleak; and Cthulhu needs big unknowable gods and weird horror, when the natural world can be dangerous and horrifying enough to bring the feeling of insignificant humans heroically holding back the enormous forces of the world.

[SquirrelTalk]

Are furries even still that stigmatized at this point? I feel like that's a holdover from the early aughts. At any rate, playing a different creature sounds more fun and creative than just playing tiny humans.

[Lotherio]

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

I refer to Mouseguard RPG both for the design of its order - a group of mice knights who go around doing Jedi type things - and for its feel - insignificant people trying to survive in a giant, merciless world.

I feel your standpoint. I'm saying for me. A human facing the giant basilisk is different then running through the grass blades and being faced with a common snake that is just giant. I am not opposed to humans vs world, LotR felt that way, the monsters were big. But that is different than small world where encounters humans do not think are serious are bigger than life to small characters.

[Lotherio]

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

Are furries even still that stigmatized at this point? I feel like that's a holdover from the early aughts. At any rate, playing a different creature sounds more fun and creative than just playing tiny humans.

I don't know about others view of furries and playing a non-human. I'm with you, it sounds fun to me.

[ZombieGenesis]

I'd love an anthropomorphic animal game. TMNT, After the Bomb, Mutant: Year Zero. I'd even go for a game set in DC comics Earth C.

[Lotherio]

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

I'd love an anthropomorphic animal game. TMNT, After the Bomb, Mutant: Year Zero. I'd even go for a game set in DC comics Earth C.

A conversation on what folks like in this (furry anthro) realm would be good.

Sidenote, the last campaign theme for D&D made by TSR might be interesting to borrow some concepts from too.

It was Dragonfist and it was a wuxia tribute. We played it a few times, I remember the more ridiculous the martial arts seemed the more likely it was too succeed (or could just be persepctive 25 years later). I remember we fought in a paper house, with twin villains fighting around each other, one was on the floor throwing fists under the legs of their counterpart at the players and one of the PCs had chopsticks from the opening restaurant scene that he kept using to grab fingers/block blows/start grapples and flip people with. It was completely wuxia and would be good for like TNMT if someone could adopt that to a more universal system to give fantasy wuxia martial arts and fighting too.

[SquirrelTalk]

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[SquirrelTalk]

Unrelatedly, I don't remember if I've said this before, but I'd go nuts for a Pro Wrestling mush. Loads of colorful characters with exaggerated issues that are all solved by fighting each other; an expectation that some good guys will become bad guys; and some bad guys will become good guys when convenient for the narrative/a good fued. The occasional wrestling undead mortician. It'd be awesome.

[ZombieGenesis]

@squirreltalk I think a pro wrestling game would be really cool. Either one based in "reality" or a fantastical one that takes place in the far future(Champions of the Galaxy style) or even in a fantasy realm.

There's a WWE RPG that I think might translate well or even a hacked version of the diceless Marvel Universe RPG.