Horror MUX - Discussion

[Auspice]

@sunnyj said in Horror MUX:

Quite honestly, I doubt he is the only one in the game with that sort of sheet. More often than not that sort of player is just the unpopular one that got outed.

My big problem really was that he built his sheet before he even had his role/story. That was the sign of min-maxing / 'gaming' things in my book. The sheet should be built to the character.

But he also was simply playing in an antagonistic way. As people have mentioned in other places in the thread, the game is very 'PvE' with us working together and striving to survive. He was often working against everyone else and throwing wrenches in the works.

Being antagonistic is a valid play style in some regards, but in that particular story it just didn't really fit to that scale. He wasn't just that way in personality. He was practically villainous on a scale that didn't really make sense. I, personally, got dragged out of other scenes I was in to have to deal with him (as IC Head of Security)... which impeded on my own enjoyment of the game, but was done to help other people who were upset and frustrated with what he was doing.

[bored]

It was also just kind of the tone/genre-deaf nature of the character. As I said, I think there are plenty of try-hards on the game, and quite a few people with the same homogenous list of combat-oriented traits etc. However, at least in this play through, many of them are soldiers, killer robots, etc, where there's at least some justification.

The character in question was an 'emo kid,' who was... statted like a ninja. In a setting where people had traits related to things like sports they did (for physicals), social media, journalism, music, etc, he had: 'Strength (Melee Weapons)' and 'Finesse (Stealth)'. If we were playing a story where WoD-esque trenchcoat samurai were applicable, it would have been OK, but we weren't.

I will say I put this partly on staff for even approving him, although I think they've gotten a little more proactive in terms of monitoring quirks for breadth and genre-applicability in the newer round of apps.

[Botulism]

Currently down, I'm aware. Getting it back up in the next 2 hours.

[Auspice]

@botulism said in Horror MUX:

Currently down, I'm aware. Getting it back up in the next 2 hours.

[Botulism]

We're back!

[Deleted]

Not gonna lie... The stuff about magic skeletons and nukes completely killed my desire to play. The story wasn't horror at all. And it felt like a race to get to the next story as soon as the cool kids clique died.

I do wish the game luck though. I think splitting up that group by putting each of them in separate orgs was a really smart move on staff's part.

[surreality]

@sunnyj Surprisingly? Not so much. People are really working their flaws, and being reasonably specific with their areas of specialty.

And more than that, people are really PLAYING their flaws well, and to fun effect. There's no 'winning' mindset going on, really, beyond people scrambling for some kind of temporary solution to buy everyone some time to get away or live on until morning, rather than looking for miracle cures through their combination of stat maxes.

(And, fwiw, The Director is REALLY awesome at turning even those rare wonder rolls into a new complication for everyone to face as a consequence rather than a 'yay, the day is saved, and now nobody has anything else to do!' That is super epic.)

[Botulism]

@admiral
Not really sure why skeletons can't be scary - a different kind of undead/zombie. As for the nuke, if governments found out the dead were rising on an isolated island I think it's plausible they'd nuke the shit out of it. That said, I get that it's not for everyone. Not your thing, totally cool with that.

I do kind of resent the 'cool kids club' comment. I knew none of these people very much before the game started, assigned roles entirely at random as people showed up, and the first story barely went a month. The 'cool kids' died in the middle. That's maybe 2-3 weeks for a few people to become 'the cool kids'.

And yes, I mixed stuff up with shuffling groups to prevent 'popular cliques' from hopefully being a thing.

[SunnyJ]

@botulism You can't stop cliques for sure, I don't think, you can only hope people are interested in each other enough they play with each other. In a cooperative game this is easier than, lets say, WoD where "everyone is out to fuck you up and shit on your fun". Nothing wrong with trying, though.

[Auspice]

I will note, for Botulism's sake as well...

The first story was rushed to an ending, yes. She also checked with the playerbase on doing so and the majority of players weighed in that they wanted it done. The reason being that it was taken as a lesson learned. This is fairly different way of doing things (not brand new, as we've covered, but certainly new to her!) and she had some takeaways and lessons learned.

She wanted to apply those to the next story and was excited to get moving on it. So was everyone else. So it wasn't that 'oh well, the cool kids died, let's start again!' it was 'HUGE things happened that are going to kill you all in a few days anyway... what do you all say we wrap this up in a couple scenes so that we can start over again with a new story that has better pacing than this one did?'

And there weren't any really vocal naysayers to the idea. Everyone, from what I saw, said 'Yeah, let's do it! We wanna play Aliens!'

[Deleted]

I never saw such a meeting. Nobody I talked to did either.

[Botulism]

@admiral
It wasn't a meeting. I made a bbpost about it asking for feedback (and EVERYONE gets a message on login saying if there are unread bbposts so they won't forget to check), and there were a few discussions on the public channel and in the OOC room. People were invited to chime in, give opinions, etc. If you or they didn't, I'm sorry, but I made the effort. I've regularly checked with the playerbase on everything from story to rules and more. I put up a poll this story asking for feedback on pacing. I've pretty much made a point of going out of my way to make sure players have a say in things and actively solicit that. So yeah, I really resent this insinuation that a core of 'cool kids' run things by fiat.

[ZekeTheG33k]

@botulism I think by kool kids they mean the ones who are always on and are the most active.

[Botulism]

@seamus
Which brings up an interesting topic I should probably take to the Constructive board.

[Deleted]

Resent what you like. I stated things as I saw them. I made no personal attacks or hyperbole. If you don't like my criticism I don't know what to tell you.
Though if I were you I'd take it as a sign that there is/was a perception there (justified or otherwise) and work to address it.

[Botulism]

@admiral
I get it, people see things differently. And I broke things into groups and arranged those groups the way I did in part because I am aware some see it that way.

I am also saying people were and are given many opportunities to voice opinions on things, and if they don't use those opportunities, there isn't much I can do.

[Kanye Qwest]

@admiral said in Horror MUX:

I never saw such a meeting. Nobody I talked to did either.

You played yourself by not reading?

[Deleted]

@kanye-qwest You can tell who the clique is by who upvotes every single post in this thread praising the game.

Yeah, glad I left. You guys can fuck right off.

[Sunny]

@admiral said in Horror MUX:

@kanye-qwest You can tell who the clique is by who upvotes every single post in this thread praising the game.

Yeah, glad I left. You guys can fuck right off.

Even a cursory glance through this page alone betrays that this statement is factually incorrect, just FYI.

[ZekeTheG33k]

I left because of disagreements with staff on things within the game. Granted, I did not express my displeasure, but I didn't really think it mattered because I wasn't part of the "Kool Kids" aka "Majority Rulez". I've classified this game as a pure sandbox, which is a shame, because it had such potential.