Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This was actually a thing on HM from time to time. Did the big scenes where a Covenant's domain was attacked happen at 3 am in the morning for one of the political aspirants in it? "Where were you when we were fighting for our lives, you COWARD?".

Yeah, it's a douche move.

This reminds me of one point where I have to give all the credit to Kerfuffle regarding the Changeling plot on FC. After the big climactic final battle scene he said on channel that the folks who were not there we allowed to right in the parts they played in the victory since it is impossible for everyone to be there for the big scene. So even though I avoided it, mainly because the thought of a five hour plot ending combat scene is concentrated unfun for me. I am able to answer the what did you do during the battle question ICly. I hauled loads of ammo from the armory to the big guns as needed.

[Wretched]

@Arkandel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

they don't want to waste on-line time having to fathom some IC excuse for why they were absent.

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

This was actually a thing on HM from time to time. Did the big scenes where a Covenant's domain was attacked happen at 3 am in the morning for one of the political aspirants in it? "Where were you when we were fighting for our lives, you COWARD?".

Yeah, it's a douche move.

This happened to me in a Werewolf LARP I was in like 12 years ago. I skipped out one week and i came back to my pack having decided that i abandoned them on an important mission and were all douchebags about it. This was the trigger for me deciding to destroy their apartment, get them evicted (ICly ;p) and the fall to the Wyrm and betray them at a critical moment. Which was great fun.

If someone is OOCLY unavailable, never give them dickish consequences or treat them like an abandoner. They just had some Gandalf level shit to do and will be back whenever.

[Pandora]

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

I was just trying to illustrate that sometimes OOC communication is done in the interests of IC continuity.

What if A specifically wants to murder B, via framing it as an accident? A knocks on C's door, C doesn't answer. A is reasonably assured that C isn't around. A invites B to a 'friendly spar' in which A proceeds to stab B in the chest. A clutches her pearls and drags B into the hall, valiantly banging on the doctor's door, to no avail. Agony! B bleeds out, unable to be saved. Acta est fabula, plaudite! A carries B to the ship's chaplain, then heads off to find D, E, and F to plot their mutiny. Story! Plot! - wait, what's this? C logs in the next morning like 'Retcon, I would have been there to save B'.

At what point is the line between 'reasonable assumption' and 'preferable outcome' crossed? It's not a black and white issue. I am not a MUSHer, so naturally I stand on the side of the line that says 'If a character isn't there, they aren't there, and the onus is on them to come up with the least preposterous yet entirely-possible explanation for why they weren't available.' No one is going to court martial you for being in the shower when someone banged on your door at Implausible o'Clock at night. Or maybe they are. It's a story, albeit maybe not the one you woke up thinking you'd be telling that day.

[Lotherio]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

I was just trying to illustrate that sometimes OOC communication is done in the interests of IC continuity.

What if A specifically wants to murder B, via framing it as an accident? A knocks on C's door, C doesn't answer. A is reasonably assured that C isn't around. A invites B to a 'friendly spar' in which A proceeds to stab B in the chest. A clutches her pearls and drags B into the hall, valiantly banging on the doctor's door, to no avail. Agony! B bleeds out, unable to be saved. Acta est fabula, plaudite! A carries B to the ship's chaplain, then heads off to find D, E, and F to plot their mutiny. Story! Plot! - wait, what's this? C logs in the next morning like 'Retcon, I would have been there to save B'.

At what point is the line between 'reasonable assumption' and 'preferable outcome' crossed? It's not a black and white issue. I am not a MUSHer, so naturally I stand on the side of the line that says 'If a character isn't there, they aren't there, and the onus is on them to come up with the least preposterous yet entirely-possible explanation for why they weren't available.' No one is going to court martial you for being in the shower when someone banged on your door at Implausible o'Clock at night. Or maybe they are. It's a story, albeit maybe not the one you woke up thinking you'd be telling that day.

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

[faraday]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

At what point is the line between 'reasonable assumption' and 'preferable outcome' crossed? It's not a black and white issue.

It's absolutely not black and white. Where I tend to personally draw the line is where there is no plausible reason.

A single knock from a would-be murderer? Easy. I was asleep. I had my headphones on. I was in the shower.

Being absent for a single night when the ship's in spacedock and there's an accident? Also easy. I was getting take-out. I was at the bar.

Saying multiple ship crew members failed to find you on a tiny ship when there was literally nowhere else for you to be? Saying you abandoned your clan because you didn't log in for a couple days and something big went down? Saying you're ignoring something huge that happened to your IC spouse just because you haven't been able to RP for a week? Saying you don't know how your sick mother (who you live with) is doing just because she hasn't logged in to update you with her status? No. Sorry. Those I draw the line on. (And these are all situations that have actually happened in games I know of.)

I like @Wretched's motto:

If someone is OOCLY unavailable, never give them dickish consequences or treat them like an abandoner.

[Pandora]

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

It doesn't seem comparable, in the MU* example, no one is deciding what you DID do, they are only noting what you did not do. So the exact correlatory comparison would be:

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to make a move. You don't make a move. A shows up out of nowhere and stabs me (B) in the chest. If you don't get back from your phone call in time to save me, I bleed out all over your chess board. You come back, explain to the police why I am dead, and why you let your King be one move away from being captured.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Pandora Yes! While I think it's reasonable to make reasonable concessions for people who aren't online, I lean a lot more to the "make up a reason you weren't there". I'd personally say that does more to build a relatable IC continuity. I'm not sure if MUSHers live in a wonderful world where events go as scheduled and planned, people are where they should be, things work out in time for the Late Show, or what. (If so, fuck them. God)

But to me, the unexpected goes a long, long way towards building that 'immersion' I like to talk about.

I also see that it's just an issue of developed grid vs non developed. If you had a super terrible day and you don't want to be involved in any conflict RP, then by all means ask a friendly pc over and have tea and watch American Horror Story. If you are feeling more emotionally stable, get out there and see what happens. Make something happen. Be flexible! Unless someone wants you to RP about pranks.

Then, all you can do is nuke it from orbit.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

Yo, this is a terrible example. There's no narrative in chess. It's like comparing mini golf and charades. Just because they are both "games' doesn't mean the ways they are played (or the reasons they are played) are remotely similar.

[Lotherio]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

It doesn't seem comparable, in the MU* example, no one is deciding what you DID do, they are only noting what you did not do. So the exact correlatory comparison would be:

It is forcing a 'you were not at your post'. Player cannot be on 24/7, or even every day of the week. Their char would be, this is making a weird cross over of OOC/IC.

Edit: Its forcing the player to make up an excuse for something OOC that isn't truly conceivable for the character who is in the world 24/7. I'm with Faraday, a reason could be found, but I find it better to offer the player benefit of the doubt for the character. Similar to having a character know something about the world the player wouldn't, and the GM/ST gives them a knowledge take to give them info. Instead of saying, welp, player doesn't know our theme, they're SOL, they give them the opportunity to allow character to meta for them.

[Pandora]

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I like @Wretched's motto:
If someone is OOCLY unavailable, never give them dickish consequences or treat them like an abandoner.

It's a nice motto, but I suppose I just don't see someone not being around for something as a dickish consequence? And at no point did I accuse C of being an abandoner. If B dies and OOCly blames/guilts C for not being around, that's B's inability to separate IC from OOC, aka B's problem.

Edited to add: I'm not knocking any game's ability/inability to work around these types of situations. I'm just noting that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the issue, which is why it's such a good thing that there are many different types of MU*s to cater to different types of players.

[surreality]

@Pandora The 'you abandoned me' thing came up in someone else's post earlier (though I can't go dig for it now), so I don't think anyone was trying to imply you came up with that one. It was one of the examples someone gave as the reason they would use for someone else not being there -- as in, the player is not connected, and instead of going with a neutral 'he just wasn't there', the person looking for them went to the 'he wasn't there because he abandoned me and left us in the lurch that bastard!' kind of place.

I see a difference between the two there; one is 'he's just not there', the other power-poses the reasons he's not there on the other player, so instead of 'come up with a reason I wasn't there', the other player is stuck with 'come up with a reason my character abandoned people and left them in the lurch', which are pretty different things to have to explain or justify IC.

[faraday]

@Pandora It's a dickish consequence if I'm forced to concoct some idiotic explanation for why C wasn't able to be found when no plausible reason exists. If you don't think that's a problem - that's fine. I agreed it wasn't black and white. As I said, I was just illustrating where I believe that OOC communication can help with IC continuity.

[Wretched]

Look I know the 3 of us were camped out in this safe house and have NO LOGICAL REASON that we would ever not be there. Except that we had a sudden plumbing problem and everything is fucked and since I have an allergy to drinking shit water and wading around in backed up toilet I had to go an an emergency stealth mission to buy space-draino and water filters.

Just don't make assumptions without talking to the other person. These are supposed to be (IMO) cooperative games most the time.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It is forcing a 'you were not at your post'. Player cannot be on 24/7, or even every day of the week. Their char would be, this is making a weird cross over of OOC/IC.

Yeah, this. Half the reason people burn out on these games is the implied, inflated obligation they sometimes feel like.

Also, on the more code-heavy games I've played, there was usually coded resolution that staff could apply (or NPC commands players could access) if a particular PC in a particular role wasn't online at the exact hour they were needed. Because the two PC doctors that exist on a game usually aren't, sensibly, the only two doctors that exist in the entire city.

[Apos]

Is it me or are most of the, 'You abandoned me!' 'NO I WAS THERE ALL ALONG' arguments from dysfunctional IC couples arguing about whether one person is active enough? I'll take Shit I Never Want To Arbitrate As Staff for a thousand, Alex.

[Pandora]

So this got me to thinking - how could A -ever- murder B and make it look like an accident if C is apparently omnipresent? I know if you stuck me in a cruiser with 2 people and I wanted to kill one of them I'd just wait until the third person is asleep or in the loo and I'd say afterwards 'I called for you, but you didn't hear me' and what are you going to say? 'No, you didn't call for me, I'd have heard you.'?

[Lotherio]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So this got me to thinking - how could A -ever- murder B and make it look like an accident if C is apparently omnipresent? I know if you stuck me in a cruiser with 2 people and I wanted to kill one of them I'd just wait until the third person is asleep or in the loo and I'd say afterwards 'I called for you, but you didn't hear me' and what are you going to say? 'No, you didn't call for me, I'd have heard you.'?

There are myriad way to do this, other than waiting for C to be offline and then have them make up an excuse for not being there.

Poisoning, and visiting and continuing to posion while under doctors care.

Not only does it include C without forcing them to make up some OOC determination for having a RL, it makes it so you could be caught, others could be brought in, the story could grow.

If you're looking for a PK when no one is around, or others don't have a chance to intervene, this will upset folks too.

Edit: Hell, someone shows up almost murdered looks like accident, doc figures it out, this could explode into a good plot ... we have a murderer on the ship, who dunit?!

[surreality]

@Pandora There are assumptions there that swing one way or the other. There's an unfairness to 'assume the character is always there whether the player is there or not', but there's also an unfairness to 'assume the character isn't there simply because the player cannot be'.

Solution: wait until the player is connected, but isn't around the target IC. That's fair to all parties involved in every possible way, and assumes nothing in one direction or the other.

[faraday]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So this got me to thinking - how could A -ever- murder B and make it look like an accident if C is apparently omnipresent?

I wish people would stop taking things to extremes I never said. All I said was that when the people involved were actively seeking C in a life-or-death situation on the ship that there was no logical reason why they wouldn't find her. That's vastly different from saying that C is some kind of all-seeing ever-present beast. Goodness.

[acceleration]

@Pandora

I think what they're saying is:

If A critically injures B and Doctor C isn't currently logged in, they would timelock the scene until Doctor C is logged in if:

1. A (or some other party) would take B to the doctor in the first place
2. it is feasible to take B to the doctor, e.g., they're not stuck in a bog with no cell service
3. for some reason that doctor is the only one they would take B to

If A wants to ambush B and make it look like an accident, there is usually a system in place for A to stalk B without their IC knowledge and wait to get B alone in a dark alley via a request that goes through staff. However, these kinds of jobs usually throw up red flags for the victim in a game where direct unscheduled ST attention is rare and can lead to complications.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Apos said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Is it me or are most of the, 'You abandoned me!' 'NO I WAS THERE ALL ALONG' arguments from dysfunctional IC couples arguing about whether one person is active enough? I'll take Shit I Never Want To Arbitrate As Staff for a thousand, Alex.

Yeah, honestly most of the nasty possibilities people are laying out in this thread are things that come about because of OOC tensions between players, making them become extremely exacting in the keeping of rules, permissive of other rules being bent, etc.

When I've seen these issues, they were more often about OOC interactions than a lack of them.

And again, this is why I'm all about limiting my OOC interactions with people in game as much as possible. It eliminates both the issue of taking things that happen IC in a personal, OOC manner (since you have no OOC interactions to color your perceptions of things) and those popups of insanely derailing OOC drama.