If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP

[bear_necessities]

@Alamias lol I can't stop watching and smiling at that gif

[Xetetic]

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[Ominous]

Isn't Spirit Lake closed to new players to limit the population?

Would Delta Green or some other 'you're a bunch of investigators/supernatural hunters a la XCom, the Buffy Gang, the Winchester Brothers, etc' setting match the Urban Fantasy low to mid powered humans vs. supernatural creatures? Have all the players be part of the group, focused on a hub area like a headquarters city, then have GMed/PRPed mission out elsewhere where they figure out where the crop circles are really coming from.

What if you did it in a low-magic fantasy setting, say like Mouse Guard only with humans? Or is the modern setting a central part of the appeal?

[Ominous]

@Xetetic said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

What can I, as a new member of a MU*, do to demonstrate interest in wanting to "fit in" and play with the rest of the group? Because it's getting to the point where I think I might be better at running MU*s than playing them (thanks to my DMing experience in TTRPGs with friends). Should I just do that instead?

I mean, if you're actually that good at running stuff, and you don't mind the monetary and time outlay (i.e. having no life) of running a server, absolutely! More games are more better!

As for getting involved in RP in Arx, are you having trouble at finding anything, because that's a bit hard to believe? I've had a large BarP scene every night this week that resulted from a bunch of people out on the public grid just showing up. If it's the deeper story that you're looking for, what families and organizations are you in?

[Xetetic]

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[krmbm]

@Xetetic said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

this is a common part of the experience.

That. It's a common part of the experience.

My experience has been... if you want something more than Bar RP, you better make it happen for yourself.

Or TS a staff member.

[thesuntsar]

I spent a chunk of one night talking to @bear_necessities about how someone could slap together a basic L&L game and people would populate it pretty quickly. I think we briefly discussed if there was magic in this scenario and my opinion was basically even that probably didn't need to be that complicated. People like their wizards and knights and damsels and stuff.

Now... is this proposed game any good? Probably not.

[Ominous]

@thesuntsar said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Now... is this proposed game any good? Probably not.

Good is relative. Billions and billions served...

[bear_necessities]

@thesuntsar Generic Lords & Ladies: The Mush! is going to be an AWESOME game dammit.

[Testament]

@Alamias said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@bear_necessities Modern Day

That's my biggest detractor to most Ares games. And I like Ares. Could just never get into modern day types. But that's just me.

[bear_necessities]

@Testament Yeah, different strokes for different folks but I do think there's something about modern-day that has a broad appeal. Or at the very least, alternative-fiction time periods where there's modern conveniences and no -isms.

I for a long time tried to develop a western MUSH based in 1880s. It ust got too difficult to overcome some of the inherent problems of the time to make a game where a lot of people could play whatever they wanted. There is probably a middle ground, but I think you either take a lose on the setting or a lose on the kind of characters that can work in the setting.

[Seraphim73]

@Ominous said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

What if you did it in a low-magic fantasy setting, say like Mouse Guard only with humans? Or is the modern setting a central part of the appeal?

It's not fantasy, but the middle-magic setting of The Savage Skies has attracted quite a few people. Unfortunately, the historical setting takes more brainpower than a modern day setting does, so we've had quite a few folks get idle because braining is hard these days. That might be one reason that a modern setting would be important right now.

[Groth]

Out of sheer nostalgia I'd like to see a 1990's setting. I want to see trench-coats, brick-phones and Usenet.

[Ominous]

The solution is easy then. Buffy the Supernatural X-Com-Files: Men in Black and Delta Green. You got your group of government agents/militia demon hunters/vigiliante researchers/whatever that are played by the PCs in <insert metropolis big enough for interesting things to happen here> and aside from their BaRP and small cases in said metropolis, they head out on missions to other parts of the country/world to investigate and shoot demons/ghost/witches/Cthulhu. The PC group can even have fae/aliens/demons/angels/elves/vampires that have decided to work for the "good guys" so you let people have their exotic player races.

[Sunny]

@Xetetic

Coming in cold in the hobby these years is almost impossible, regardless of game. If you don't know anybody at all it requires LOTS of luck to just stumble into something by happenstance, and that just...doesn't happen. No matter where. No matter what tools are in place.

HOWEVER.

Use tools like this place, or staff, or -- Facebook, or Google, or -- to find people first. "I am interested in playing X on Y, I know nobody, would anyone be interested in being a contact / go to person for me? Can I play something in somebody's group that they're looking for?" -- it may not end up being a character you stick with long term or whatever, right? However, what it will do is start you from a position of knowing that you have a person (or people) that have straight out agreed to help you meet other people / etc. -- and it keeps it from being a cold start.

Will you always get a bite or whatever to reaching out like that? Nope. But these years, 'I am out of the loop and am looking for a volunteer to hook me back in' is probably the most effective thing you could do.

ETA: If you already have a specific game in mind, hop onto it, look at the wanted board, and page people up front. 'Hey I see your post wanting X, I'm interested, but caveat I'm a new player to the game and know no one, and would need a bit of extra help. What do you think?'

ETA2: Contact old friends who also quit mushing. DRAG THEM BACK KICKING AND SCREAMING. (spoiler: this is what I did.)

[reversed]

@Groth said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Out of sheer nostalgia I'd like to see a 1990's setting. I want to see trench-coats, brick-phones and Usenet.

A friend was doing an online tabletop thing set in 1997-ish and I was so excited to be like "MY CHARACTER WORKS AT THE USED CD STORE"

[surreality]

@reversed Mom & Pop video rental shop. Would totally do it.

[reversed]

Gen is a 22-year-old woman with tan skin and long brown (with blonde highlights) hair whose natural waviness is given heft and frizz by the humid climate. She has a long face with high cheekbones, a wide and expressive mouth, a gentle hawkishness to her nose, and large eyes ringed with an extra dose of dark make-up as an effective way to cover up the constant raccoon-eyes of sleep deprivation. She has a bad habit of holding the top end of her tongue barbell between her teeth. She smokes Camel Regulars.

Gen dresses like the postmodern dream-girl of every wannabe music journalist: low-rise hip-huggers in denim or pleather, scuffy Doc Martens, animal-print fake-fur coats with collars and lapels big enough to alter the silhouette of her shoulders, and a range of tops (spaghetti-strap tanks, long-sleevers that go sheer in the right light, band shirts for hip muso picks, and fitted baby tees printed with possibly-ironic logos for stuff like Japanese steakhouses or Tibetan independence) that universally bare a flat-but-soft midriff and a pierced navel.

It was like a license to unleash my inner SPIN Magazine.

[SilentHills]

@reversed I dig it. It makes me nostalgic for the sort of trashy girl I wanted to be when I was in junior high.

[bear_necessities]

I'd play a 90s game if someone made it. As long as there were only human PCs tho.