Horror MUX - Discussion
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@bored I only had everyone kill one SR because I wanted the fact that nearly half the population died that first bad night. I wanted everyone to be personally hit by that loss. That's all it was.
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@botulism That's totally fair. It's a new thing and there's going to be learning steps, and if anything you deserve applause for actually doing something new vs. the same old that we're usually stuck with.
Those changes sound reasonable too. I'd just be cautious about the GP stuff too so that the people who kinda whiffed on round 1 will majorly miss out on round 2 because they lack cool toys.
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@bored I'm going to make sure everyone has enough GP to get something this time around, and the Perks won't be game-changing/breaking. Just some new tricks.
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@three-eyed-crow said in Horror MUX:
@botulism
Yeah that totally wasn't directed at you. Tho even the softer concept of 'seasons' where there are contained story campaigns and then you shift to another (with mostly the same characters) I've been on a handful of places that have done them to varying degrees of success/failure. I think there's more experimentation in smaller games than the not-so-vast masses see sometimes. This is a cool approach to it and its exciting to see it tried, tho.I think people get more attached to their characters the more is at stake. Such as: if you've invested a lot of time to get something neat, like a sword that screams and can kill vampires, or if you spent a long time to poise that character for a position of import in the setting. It is admittedly fair to be frustrated if the wrong timing has you lose those two investments in the next 'phase', but I like how tabletop games like Pendragon and others deal with this. It gives you a sense of continuity without forcing you to think your game ends with the death of your character, even if Pendragon is really, really punitive as far as systems go. The wrong 20 in a roll can spell your death.
Conrad has tons to do (to the 'I have people griefing me because I'm RPing with someone else instead of dealing with their request' level. I know his player very well.
I have a character whose entire initial personal agenda was to fuck with Conrad. That personal agenda lasted exactly one day/night because everyone is either in it together or they'll have to be the only man/woman on the island. The inherently cooperative nature of a game where the individuals odds are bad for everyone, regardless of their concept or IC connections, is really, really interesting to see play out.
Essentially, you either build a bridge with others or you get stuck and possibly perish. Ultimately, though, I made my own fun and my character, who started out as the odd man out, made connections with people that I think are very interesting to play out.
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@deadculture Still that's kind of my point. You had a character with an agenda (in a similar way that Victor did, provocateur/etc) that put them into the story. That's not true of all of them.
And part of the frustration is that I took the archetype to be a bit different, but can see if I'd gone with something more like what I'd usually play (ie, if I'd just grabbed the Solider) I'd objectively have had more opportunity for involvement.
I'm far from saying no one is having fun, so your having fun doesn't really address it.
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I picked up something on the game, I love the concept. Loved the idea, loved the thought that I'd always be portraying this Archetype in different settings. But I missed the first nights event, and have felt really lost and out of place since then. To the point that I haven't logged in because when I HAVE logged in I've sat in the OOC room with everyone else feeling disconnected from what everyone was talking about having done/planning to do. I WANTED to enjoy the game, and I'm stoked that people are. But I don't know...I sort of second this feeling of not having connected to the story in some real tangible way that makes me, too, feel like I'm there and part of it. Maybe having missed the first night was just the death knell for me.
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@iluvgrumpycat this. I've missed pretty much all the night RP so I've never really felt connected to anything going on when I have tried to join in on a scene. I never even posed in because I just had nothing to add
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I missed the main events of the first night. Work was utter murder, so I wasn't there. I had to hop in when I got home, get caught up, and work with @Botulism on where I was and meld back in.
She already had an idea in place that she ran by me as soon as I was there and it worked out completely. It led to some great story and helped me fit right back in.
I do have some personal ideas on how to help supplement things to make it easier next story for those whose schedule don't work with her own availability for running stuff (that I'll be running by her today), but it was doable if you missed the first night.
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Anyone have suggestions for how to amend fragmented or non-start play like this? Is there an approach or tool that would help?
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@misadventure @Botulism will try out divving people out in factions/crews next iteration and seeing if that works. I like the idea considering the future setting.
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@iluvgrumpycat and @WildBaboons
This story was rushed, and as a result stuff blew past people. I fully admit that. It was out of a concern over keeping people from getting bored and leaving early right out of the gate. So I overshot and lost some people. I still feel having too much happen and losing a few people is a better option than going too slow and everyone getting bored. I needed the first story to move quickly as a proof-of-concept.
That said, future stories will build more. I'm re-balancing things and making adjustments as noted up-thread. It's a work in progress and I'm learning as I go. I hope you'll give it a second chance!
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@deadculture Hmm, I was hoping that clever folks out there had other approaches as well.
EG a group I know has the alpha team and has a beta team to play when not everyone can make it. That beta team is more flexible in terms of sudden start stops, and in general, are set up for quick single session stories. This is for a tabletop group, but it got me thinking about if players can come up with satisfying ways to "catch up" in their own experiences. Like making up their own dramatic moment that causes them to be at the right place/seek the right people/bring themselves to attention of the others. Something.
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The size of the events just kept me from even trying to get involved. 5 people is about my limit. A dozen just drives me away.
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@tnp Understandable. This game is smaller than many, but scenes are bigger, yeah.
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I am kinda interested in trying this out. Is there a particular available Archetype that people would really like to see? If I pick based on my whim I'll just end up randomly not doing much.
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@misadventure said in Horror MUX:
@deadculture Hmm, I was hoping that clever folks out there had other approaches as well.
I don't think this is a case of obviously right/wrong approach (aside from the one already identified and addressed).
Like the plot speed stuff is mostly a matter of finding the happy medium. Obviously you need stuff happening, but it seems clear the first plot shot by (and ramped up) way too fast, denying people time to get into their characters or organically find their place in stuff.
For the next run, the inspirations are very psychologically-driven stories so I do hope we will get some 1st and 2nd act setup before we get into the full guns blazing Colonial Marines with flamethrowers and miniguns vs. alien hordes. I think that's actually really a big thing for me, it always feels like wasted potential when the 'full truth' gets shown so quickly (same issue I had on 8th sea, for instance). Like we went from... 'Everything's fine' to 'there are weird boars' to 'there are native hordes kidnapping and sacrificing people' to 'there are skeletal hordes' to 'we're gonna be nuked' in about a week?
It's hard to RP being scared when the stakes get raised every scene (or twice in one scene last night, birds then nukes!)
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The xenomorph doesn't exist at the start of the Story, and will not appear for at least 3 RL weeks.
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@bored said in Horror MUX:
Like the plot speed stuff is mostly a matter of finding the happy medium.
Yeah it's tough to find a happy middle ground when you have some (usually the most involved/active) people trying to do stuff every other night and others who just pop on once a week. It's extremely easy for the once-a-week crew to feel completely left out - especially if their online night doesn't line up with a scheduled event. I don't really have a good answer for that. MUSHes are just not very casual-friendly in general.
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@tnp said in Horror MUX:
The size of the events just kept me from even trying to get involved. 5 people is about my limit. A dozen just drives me away.
We did identify this pretty quickly and I tried to splinter off some scenes for a couple of the other nights.
It's sort of an Issue on games. People see X names in a location and Flock. I know Conrad and I got overwhelmed FAST one night and after I got home from work, I went to a new location and offered RP to people and only Tommy joined me. After about 20 minutes.
Most people stayed in Huge Ass Scene.
@Misadventure - The way I usually weave back in is I get caught up, figure out what I missed, then sit down with the ST and spitball ideas. In this particular case, the ST already had an idea on where I was and it worked out really well. In fact, it caused some PCs to be suspicious of my character for a while and led to some really good RP.
It's always worked out well as a tactic for me because it gives me some background leverage to work with and because I sit with the ST to work it out, there are times when they can hand me some info to come in with that might have been missed in the initial overall scenes. A bit of "okay so I didn't get a chance to hand this out, can you bring it in?"
I've even done that as an ST. The issue is that a lot of people just... give up. I've gone to players who missed out before and said "Hey, want to get into things? I have a few ideas..." and just get shrugged off, "Nah..." or a total lack of interest.
It is a two-way street and I know missing out on that initial Big Scene can suck, but @Botulism is also working out ways to fix it up. Such as supporting the fact that we've been splitting up into other rooms by using @wall to announce the big things happening (like an attack on the entire resort) to the whole game and using 'Cameras' in the rooms to see peoples' reactions. So that you can RP in smaller groups, still see the big goings-on, and she can react to your smaller group.
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Maybe split stories and how they are handled between the one a week folk, and the every other day folk? I assume that they are still carrying the majority of the burden for RP, and staff is handling very specific things, which are mainly designed to allow for that player generated content, or ending a question/plot/showing a twist.
