Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying
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A tangent to the conversation in How much Code is too much Code?:
What pieces of code or code systems have you encountered that you feel really made it easier to tell good stories?
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Page. OOC. @mail. Anomaly Jobs. Events. Organizational tools that help keep players connected and on the same page.
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@tat The +event code. @Cobaltasaurus did it right. It changed how plots are ran, and how easy it is for runners to schedule things then for players to sign up for and be alerted when they're about to start.
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Faraday's scene system.
It's similar to the temproom system many WoD games use, but the added features it has are lovely. Being able to see what scenes are open with 'scenes' (with things like 'location,' scene summary (if set), etc. Being able to jump into a scene with 'scene/join' all help in getting access to RP (I don't have to wait for someone to send a meetme, for example).
The system also allows you to define a scene/set (so no need to page each incoming person). It has a scene/log on the fly, scene/repose (so people can either read the full log to catch up or just the last few; again, no need to page people to catch them up!).
When the scene is done? I just make sure the pertinent info is filled out and I can post the scene.
Done.
It allows me to focus on the RP. I love it. I probably love it the most out of everything she's done with AresMUSH. And I say this as someone who hates logging more than anything.
ETA: Almost forgot. As an ST, the scene/emit function is great. It sets apart my ST poses so that even in a big scene, everyone knows 'oh hey, ST pose!' so it's not lost in the rest and I don't have to do any especial formatting myself.
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RfK's off-camera social actions system which included rumours, territory stats and +downtime units. It allowed socially statted characters to build influence and manipulate events within and outside of their territory, and to whittle away or buttress support for foes, allies, and themselves. It was the first time on a game that I felt my social character could go toe to toe with combat monsters (in a non-combat situation) and come out ahead.
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Self plug:
poseorder and repose.
I find these two help people stay in character and don't have to ask questions OOC, don't have to be reminded it's their turn, don't have to scroll back through bboard or job spam to find the most recent poses. Poseorder, in particular, with it's BEEP! is absolutely great for living real life while RPing.
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I looooove:
Code that always highlights/colors my name, server side.
Code that highlights/colors speech a different color omg so amazing.
Poseorder code to see where I am
Code that lets me read my alts' @mail.
M1963's activity requirement notification code
Also weather code even though people mostly don't do it any more
I like it when games are snowing. -
@sunny said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
Code that highlights/colors speech a different color omg so amazing.
AresMUSH does this. I'm not a fan of it personally (it trips my ADD so it makes poses more distracting), but I know a lot of people who use it. You can also customize the colors used.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@sunny said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
I looooove:
Code that always highlights/colors my name, server side.
- @toggle me=extansi
- @extansi me=<colorcode your name here>
- @toggle me=variable (this allows your pose/say to be colorized when you talk)
Code that highlights/colors speech a different color omg so amazing.
- This would require end-code systems by the administration. Lots of easy ways to do this though (on any platform honestly)
Poseorder code to see where I am
- help speech_prefix (this is a prefix that works before all say, pose, and emits)
- help speech_suffix (this is a suffix that works after all say, pose, and emits)
Code that lets me read my alts' @mail.
- mail/share *myalt
- mail/number *altwhoshared
- mail/check *altwhoshared=message-number
M1963's activity requirement notification code
- this tends to be system by system with various watcher code
Also weather code even though people mostly don't do it any more
I like it when games are snowing.- This is a hard animal to do as the only 'real' weather code that's publically available is Keren's weather system. Which is out dated, cumbersome, and coded like vomit. Did I mention the vomit? The buckets of horrible vomit?
I notice a lot of people ask this in Rhost, so answered above for ya
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@auspice Yeah, can do the same on both Arx and M1963, too. Choose the colors and so on. It is one of my favorite new options people make available.
OH OH OH OH OH OH OH.
EMIT LABEL IS THE BEST THING EVER.
It puts [name] at the beginning of an emit for who did it.
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@ashen-shugar said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
This is a hard animal to do as the only 'real' weather code that's publically available is Keren's weather system. Which is out dated, cumbersome, and coded like vomit. Did I mention the vomit? The buckets of horrible vomit?
This is the thing that makes me sad. I'd love to see a good weather code someday, but I'm also aware what a bitch it is.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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A small but excellent one: pose/history on Arx. If your connection gets dropped, when you relog, all you have to do is hit +pose/history and you get the last few poses in the room since you posed. No one has to page you what you missed, or halt the scene to try to figure out what you did or didn't see. It is wonderful.
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Yeah, I've seen this on some games as +repose or repose. Pretty nifty they have this sort of pose history thing going in servers now!
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I did forget, re: Faraday's scene system:
being able to edit poses on the fly.
scene/undo - remove your last pose (great for those times you prematurely hit enter!)
scene/replace - replace your pose with an edited version
scene/typo - silently replace your pose with edited version (good for fixing minor typos)This way, the scene/log is already clean and ready to go when you're done. No need to edit after the fact. Again, goes back to my hatred of log editing.
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@auspice said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
This is the thing that makes me sad. I'd love to see a good weather code someday, but I'm also aware what a bitch it is.
My old Penn codebase has weather. So does Ares. They're not as grand as Keran's system so I dunno if you'd consider them "good", but they should be reasonably easy to set up.
I'm personally proud of my scene system, which @Auspice already mentioned (thanks btw). To be fair with due credit that was inspired by stuff that @ixokai and @skew did with repose and scene capturing. I just improved on it. The quotecolor code was inspired by @Avarice.
The FS3 combat system enables storytelling in mass combats if that's your jam.
I know some people hate it, but I adore meetme code.
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I personally love automated chargens, automation that can get people playing and empower them to spend resources (Money or xp) within the game system is imho, key to just getting the game on.
Every time Staff /must/ get involved, it's slowing things down and a barrier for RP.
So I have been on a kick lately of coding chargens that don't need staff at all, the options allow only for legal characters to be made. It frees up staff for things like... running plot, theme and setting support, etc.
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@auspice said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
Faraday's scene system.
It's similar to the temproom system many WoD games use, but the added features it has are lovely. Being able to see what scenes are open with 'scenes' (with things like 'location,' scene summary (if set), etc. Being able to jump into a scene with 'scene/join' all help in getting access to RP (I don't have to wait for someone to send a meetme, for example).
The system also allows you to define a scene/set (so no need to page each incoming person). It has a scene/log on the fly, scene/repose (so people can either read the full log to catch up or just the last few; again, no need to page people to catch them up!).
When the scene is done? I just make sure the pertinent info is filled out and I can post the scene.
Done.
It allows me to focus on the RP. I love it. I probably love it the most out of everything she's done with AresMUSH. And I say this as someone who hates logging more than anything.
I am so intrigued about this code. I'm not familiar with it at all, but it seems like it could be plugging some current missing holes in the code.
Other code that helps RP:
I loved Arx's +action and +storyreq systems are great.
I personally think every game should have some version of Arx's +clues, even if they end up modifying a little.
I was a big fan of RfK's +crisis system
And even though Firan's code gets a bad rap, that rumor/gossip code was gold. -
@auspice said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
@ashen-shugar said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
This is a hard animal to do as the only 'real' weather code that's publically available is Keren's weather system. Which is out dated, cumbersome, and coded like vomit. Did I mention the vomit? The buckets of horrible vomit?
This is the thing that makes me sad. I'd love to see a good weather code someday, but I'm also aware what a bitch it is.
Hey, @Sparks, remember when you, I, and Larryghost were talking about this, and I was designing code that kept track of ground wetness and snow evaporation rate? I understand if you didn’t, because it was an insanely long time ago now, but I keep wanting to get back to that.
But here’s the thing about weather code: It’s simulationist. You are pushed into it being snowy right now for no other reason than some bit of code randomly told you so. Same thing with day or night. These are things that people are far more likely to ignore. Even the day is merely a default; if someone says a scene happened last week and everyone agrees, then it happened last week. Hell, start a scene at 2pm and next thing you know it’s midnight but only 3 hours have passed in game.
A more advanced weather system might be fun for the coder, but I doubt it would enhance gameplay.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain said in Code systems that make it easier to get on with the business of roleplaying:
A more advanced weather system might be fun for the coder, but I doubt it would enhance gameplay.
I mean, it may be a pretty even split? I know on modern day games, a lot of people end up going to the regional Weather.com or Wunderground.com page to locate current weather, moon phase, etc. before starting RP. I do and I know a lot of other people who do as well.
Being able to just hit +weather/+time and have it on game, gleaned from the API from one of those sites? Would be amazing. Again, unfun to code (for older codebases, I imagine), but amazing.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@auspice Yeah. I love weather code. If I'm setting a scene, I like to use weather code to add atmosphere and flavor to it - I /like/ a scene that's randomly raining, or snowing, or beautifully sunny and swelteringly hot. It really does add to gameplay, at least for me.
