Historical MU*s

Ganymede

Are significant deviations from history permitted on historical games? Is Asimov's invisible hand guiding the way things are supposed to be? And yes, you could just never give players a shot at tipping the scales at critical points in history but that's kinda boring. Yet if they do the premise can swiftly change to a 'what-if'.

I think it depends on the system. If someone deploys a good political/wargame system, you could have the PCs represent local leaders and generals, with NPCs as the invaders, and play through an invasion. Then, you could switch the tables.

Lotherio

@Ganymede said in Historical MU*s:

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

Danelaw ...
York is sacked, the Viking have moved in and named it Jorvik.

You mean Eoforwic, right? The Danes sacked Eoforwic.

Yes, I'm that kind of pedant.

Yes, we could use the Roman name, Eboracum, too if we wanted too. York is what most people will know and why I choose to say it, even though that itself derives from Jorvik, which is what the Danes call Eoforwic. This sort of pedantic is why most historical games fail. Semantics and arguing over who is right, as @Kanye-Qwest pointed out, three people being pedantic on the OOC chan about whether Vikings or the Japanese were better at folding iron. Or how many links in the chainmail for the specific period.

Arkandel

@Lotherio , @Ganymede, you are both monsters and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I don't come to MSB to learn things.

Ganymede

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

This sort of pedantic is why most historical games fail.

This is a cop-out. This is not why most historical games fail. Most historical games fail for the reasons already obliquely referenced in prior posts.

Having a MU* based in history is a great idea. Any game set in a historical setting is awesome. The problem, more often than not, is the lack of things to do. In fact, I would wager that the vast majority of games that do not live past the first year die because there's nothing for the players to do but exist in an awesome setting.

No one will give a shit whether you call the settlement York, Jorvik, Eoforwic, or Eboracum if there's something to do. Pick what you like about the setting and the theme, and make a game out of it. If you like the Period of Invasion, I would recommend creating or adopting a system of gameplay that allows players to manage or assist in managing whatever fiefdom they are attached to.

(Pedant-Mode to Piss Off Arkandel: The Romans had withdrawn from Britannia before the Danes set foot on it, in the 4th Century A.D. Eoforwic was the Anglian capital of Northumbria until the Danes invaded towards the end of the 9th Century.)

Lotherio

@Thenomain said in Historical MU*s:

@Lotherio said:

Beyond this all honestly depends on what the players do.

And there is the key. What do players do on this game? What do characters? You say you don't want dirt-toiling realism, but then what's? Are the characters leaders trying to stave back the Danes? Will they be allowed to? What character model would you use? How to they do this, because I can't even begin to imagine unless you have traits that would answer these questions. (D&D had one for a while that I can't remember. Birthright?)

What RP scenarios are there for Vikings? For monks? Yes, I know some of it writes itself (Chicago 1930s), but most of it doesn't.

Again, I'm only saying I want such a game to play on, I have no interest in creating such a game at this juncture in time.

If its me personally playing a game, I'm a daytime player, staff never or rarely do daytime plots. What would I do as a player? I'd plot to be the leader of my hearth because they are incompetent. If it helps non historical players and since this is a WoD based forum (or was and most folks still come from that standpoint), what do you do as a Vampire politically? What for your leader to give you something to do, or go and do it.

As for who is allowed, if there was enough staff to run plots, sure, local peasantry and former land holders loyal to the old regime could be allowed, create some player conflict. Or following @Misadventure, if the populace is small, the game focuses on one hirth, the group decides if they stay in Jorvik, if they raid North Umbria, if they sail off to other lands for raiding, if they settle and farm.

Lots of decision to be made.

If I was running the game, the focus would be the hirths that came with the Great Heathen Army, how they establish themselves and how they deal with external threats. Day to day, players really do need to decide who they support, what they do to live, how they interact with the local populace now either forced to live side by side with Danes or be rebels and guerillas, a thorn in the side of the players. What the average player does is up to them, I can't dictate what they do, but I would imagine daily activity is hunting, dealing with locals, paying homage to their hirth leader or planning to dispose of them. If folks want to go on walks and go to the tavern, I won't stop them, it happens on games, can't stop purely social pretendy fun time. As staff, plots would involve external threats to the group to keep the Danes on their toes, from invading armies, to more hirths arriving (do they take them in, do they let them go). Group survival dynamics (this is oddly sounding like apocalypse survival game, instead of zombie, you have Northumbria, Mercia, other Danes, Saxons, gaelic-norse, gaelic).

Lotherio

@Ganymede said in Historical MU*s:

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

This sort of pedantic is why most historical games fail.

This is a cop-out. This is not why most historical games fail. Most historical games fail for the reasons already obliquely referenced in prior posts.

Having a MU* based in history is a great idea. Any game set in a historical setting is awesome. The problem, more often than not, is the lack of things to do. In fact, I would wager that the vast majority of games that do not live past the first year die because there's nothing for the players to do but exist in an awesome setting.

No one will give a shit whether you call the settlement York, Jorvik, Eoforwic, or Eboracum if there's something to do. Pick what you like about the setting and the theme, and make a game out of it. If you like the Period of Invasion, I would recommend creating or adopting a system of gameplay that allows players to manage or assist in managing whatever fiefdom they are attached to.

I'd venture to say most staff who offer things to do suffer from the same blow out of no fun when half the players always argue with them on when certain armor and tech came about and complaining about when they should be able to get it.

This is sort of turning 'there is nothing to do' on me, I can think of a million things to do and have fun doing them. I'm sort of moving to defense of me saying I'd like to play in a Danelaw game.

Arkandel

@Ganymede said in Historical MU*s:

Most ~~historical~~ games fail for the reasons already obliquely referenced in prior posts.
...
The problem, more often than not, is the lack of things to do.

FTFY.

Lotherio

@Arkandel said in Historical MU*s:

@Lotherio , @Ganymede, you are both monsters and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I don't come to MSB to learn things.

This will be remembered, it will be grouped in with all the other rumors about me. I am a monster on top of all that. Also, I like feet too, I'm a podiaphile; for the pedantists.

Ganymede

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

I'd venture to say most staff who offer things to do suffer from the same blow out of no fun when half the players always argue with them on when certain armor and tech came about and complaining about when they should be able to get it.

You probably have more experience with this than I do. I may have more experience with telling people to fuck off politely, which would be my tactic in the event that someone complained thusly.

Kanye Qwest

@Lotherio You're right, and it's both hilarious and sad that most of the other people in this thread don't seem to have come to the same conclusion.

Pedantry is only fun for the pedant. When I'm talking about fun and a good story and you are arguing that it's not 'realistic' because "whatever bullshit thing I read about instead of learning to perform oral sex", then please stop. That's the end of my contribution to the discussion, though. I'd never personally dabble in a game that was presenting itself as history accurate, because I already know who is going to be up in that game, ruining all the fun.

Lotherio

@Ganymede said in Historical MU*s:

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

I'd venture to say most staff who offer things to do suffer from the same blow out of no fun when half the players always argue with them on when certain armor and tech came about and complaining about when they should be able to get it.

You probably have more experience with this than I do. I may have more experience with telling people to fuck off politely, which would be my tactic in the event that someone complained thusly.

Heh, this probably happens quite often too. First the argument over historical accuracy, to the point of putting the people having fun to sleep or onto other games, then comes the fuck off part, and then its the three people still discussing some nonsense about manifest destiny and the Gadsden Purchase in the race for the transcontinental railroad. Aka: The middle step, and it always happens.

Three-Eyed Crow

I think you have to accept that the audience for historical games will be small, but small isn't terrible if it's sustainable. I played Chicago MUSH for a bit and TGG did well enough for stretches (though it had the added draw of being a war game). These games were never sprawling, 100+ connect behemoths, but they worked for enough time to be worthwhile.

It won't be huge but if the game-runner and players calibrate their expectations, that's not the worst thing in the world.

Misadventure

Really, you have to ask yourself, like any game, why do you want to make THIS particular game? When it comes to history, hopefully you see a setting charged with a lot of potential change, complex thought and conflicts to dig into, several cultures, and some relatively easy to grasp roles.

If it's because you think Victorian clothes go well with Changeling, you are choosing a historical era for the wrong reason. You forego so much of what modern thought about abuse and psychology has to say, for a hat. A damn fine hat, but only you and a few others will really get the hat.

Lotherio

@Misadventure said in Historical MU*s:

Really, you have to ask yourself, like any game, why do you want to make THIS particular game? When it comes to history, hopefully you see a setting charged with a lot of potential change, complex thought and conflicts to dig into, several cultures, and some relatively easy to grasp roles.

This right here, when making it or choosing to play on it. Staff should allow for change, players should hope for it. Pedantics aside, much like staff not offering something to do can kill any game, there being no room to change status quo at all can kill a game just the same.

And back to @Arkandel, and historical deviation (alternate in changing the course of history, not alternate in having changeling and mage and magic), the game needs to not have its course set, but the potential to deviate and find something new. The conflict and potential need to be there. For me, the three periods I mentioned have that potential.

Lisse24

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

I'd venture to say most staff who offer things to do suffer from the same blow out of no fun when half the players always argue with them on when certain armor and tech came about and complaining about when they should be able to get it.

This is sort of turning 'there is nothing to do' on me, I can think of a million things to do and have fun doing them. I'm sort of moving to defense of me saying I'd like to play in a Danelaw game.

I think any game that is depending on staff to create all the Things to Do is ultimately going to fail. I just haven't seen a sustainable model for that - unless you count Fallcoast/TR, which is its own beast.

This might be my own personal bias coming out, but the games that I have enjoyed the most and found the most RP on were games that provided systems and means whose sole purpose was to provide players with reasons to interact with each other and give them something to do.

Arkandel

@Lisse24 said in Historical MU*s:

I think any game that is depending on staff to create all the Things to Do is ultimately going to fail. I just haven't seen a sustainable model for that - unless you count Fallcoast/TR, which is its own beast.

Players should provide the majority of Things To Do. But it's still staff's responsibility - on historical MU* and otherwise - to facilitate, encourage and get out of the way of them doing so.

mietze

@Ganymede

Hey any settlement that contains the word cum in it sounds great to me as it relates to MUSHing.

surreality

@Kanye-Qwest said in Historical MU*s:

Pedantry is only fun for the pedant. When I'm talking about fun and a good story and you are arguing that it's not 'realistic' because "whatever bullshit thing I read about instead of learning to perform oral sex", then please stop. That's the end of my contribution to the discussion, though. I'd never personally dabble in a game that was presenting itself as history accurate, because I already know who is going to be up in that game, ruining all the fun.

Quoted because I can only upvote something once, and this deserves at least 100 of them.

Ganymede

@mietze said in Historical MU*s:

Hey any settlement that contains the word cum in it sounds great to me as it relates to MUSHing.

I always liked Cumberland, myself; it sounds like a really dirty forest.

peasoupling

Historical accuracy isn't a binary condition. It's not like a game can actually be historically accurate. Not even history books can be, unless they are very, very boring, dry, factual accounts of things that happened in the last couple of centuries. If a game has "historical accuracy" as its stated goal, I worry they'll mostly be policing people's descriptions for styles of belt buckle that hadn't been invented yet.

I'm a History person by training, but I can overlook a lot of anachronisms for the sake of fun, while other deviations might make me decide not to play on a game because I'd have to grit my teeth excessively.

The issue, for me, isn't really one of accuracy in general, it's consistency. Staff really should set the tone and the historical flavor they're going for and have some reason to pick a setting other than "it's a neat time period and I want to play a craftsman who specializes in belt buckles and dying of tuberculosis."

If you know what themes you want to explore, you'll have a better idea about which bits you think are important enough to have in the news files as a common baseline, and which bits are meaningless trivia. And then staff can enforce the former and make sure players understand they aren't the history police when it comes to the latter.