Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing

[Bad at Lurking]

Forgive me if I've missed it, but have we talked about the new blood mushing does get but we don't talk about much on MSB because they basically do their own thing and don't intersect with WoD or whatever type games that much?

I'm thinking about the folks that ran the Twilight games, the 100 games, that one about a superhero academy in Florida, the two urban fantasy TV show mixed-world games, etc. Sure, they are gone now, but they all had good runs with moderate to high populations at one point.

I wonder how many folks there are out there carving out their niche, at least moderately successful, that are basically just off this community's radar, largely.

[mietze]

Yep. That's why many people have said here and elsewhere that MSB does not equal the totality or even an accurate representation of mushing or how most players feel, ect.

[Tinuviel]

@mietze I'd argue it's not even an accurate representation of how we feel most of the time.

[faraday]

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I wonder how many folks there are out there carving out their niche, at least moderately successful, that are basically just off this community's radar, largely.

Lots of people from those games you mentioned are here though. I see folks talking about how MSB is like... all WoD all the time or something, but there are plenty of non-WoD MUSHers participating. I think this community represents more of the MU community than folks think.

[Prototart]

@faraday said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I wonder how many folks there are out there carving out their niche, at least moderately successful, that are basically just off this community's radar, largely.

Lots of people from those games you mentioned are here though. I see folks talking about how MSB is like... all WoD all the time or something, but there are plenty of non-WoD MUSHers participating. I think this community represents more of the MU community than folks think.

I haven't been on a wod game since I was maybe 19 and I have been not 19 for a distressing length of time

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@faraday
I only semi-jokingly bemoaned with a MUing friend of mine not long ago that I'd lost my ability to complain about the WoD stuff on MSB because it was now just as much Arx and Ares games. Time moves us all, etc.

[Derp]

@Apos said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

But most people honestly don't.

Bull.. Shit.

Most people see this kind of behavior all the time. They've just never worked in the environments you mentioned before, which teach you to actively recognize and respond to it. They're happy to go on ignoring it like they never noticed, but I don't believe for a second that they've never seen it, or that those maladaptive behaviors are not the norm.

Pick up pretty much any kind of psychology book and you'll see why this statement doesn't hold an ounce of water.

[Tehom]

@Derp said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Apos said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

But most people honestly don't.

Bull.. Shit.

Most people see this kind of behavior all the time. They've just never worked in the environments you mentioned before, which teach you to actively recognize and respond to it. They're happy to go on ignoring it like they never noticed, but I don't believe for a second that they've never seen it, or that those maladaptive behaviors are not the norm.

Pick up pretty much any kind of psychology book and you'll see why this statement doesn't hold an ounce of water.

I'm reasonably sure that "any kind of psychology book" won't disprove the notion that people encounter different things based on their environments. Most people are intellectually aware that people do bad things, yes. We're all aware that snuff videos of ISIS decapitations exist, child pornography, and the like. Yet we don't have to see it on a daily basis because we're not Facebook content moderators: it is not the norm for us.

Similarly, I'm aware that many people in this hobby behave badly, and people display the same bad behavior in real life. Yet I do not see such behavior in my professional environment, because in that environment there would be severe consequences for behaving similarly.

[Tinuviel]

Are we seriously debating the idea that there are assholes everywhere?

[Derp]

@Tinuviel said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Are we seriously debating the idea that there are assholes everywhere?

Apparently.

[Thenomain]

@Tinuviel said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Are we seriously debating the idea that there are assholes everywhere?

Well everywhere you are.

.

.

.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

[Prototart]

@Thenomain said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Tinuviel said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Are we seriously debating the idea that there are assholes everywhere?

Well everywhere you are.

.

.

.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

https://youtu.be/LG4hOjJ9tEs

[Lotherio]

I still think the 'getting young blood' is off the mark a little in how its being approached. I still feel the less complex, more universal approach is good; or as @Thenomain put it, more encourage the light fandom over deep nerditry.

I think we miss part of the mark to in not encouraging creativity and embracing that is it a written medium. This just came up in another thread, but I think its one of those things that needs a point made about getting young blood:

@Joyeuse said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

@peasoupling said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

but who even writes a "business description" and a "going to Walmart at 2am description" anyway?

I also feel called out here, because I do that exact thing for the characters I've made so far. At least once I found out about multidescs and +desc systems lol.

Old hats are good doing away with multidescs and lots of those who have been around end up focusing on PB. Forgetting part of our own draws into this hobby. Instead of defining the target audience and shooting into the dark, perspective from young blood might go a long way too I think.

[Ghost]

@Lotherio said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Old hats are good doing away with multidescs and lots of those who have been around end up focusing on PB. Forgetting part of our own draws into this hobby. Instead of defining the target audience and shooting into the dark, perspective from young blood might go a long way too I think.

Bravo. I think about this from time to time. Note, I still think the social issues need to be focused on as the true issue BUT I think it should also be asked: "What exactly IS this hobby, these days?"

You could say that it's about writing, but people interested in actual writing know that the style of roleplay isnt exactly writing. It's like...taking turns writing, which is fine but also not the way you would write with a joint author. And then (as you mentioned) scrapping descriptions for PBs, which is a step again further from writing and focusing on writing ability to flesh out the theatre of the mind sense of things.

So, I get this sense that the way someone would describe the hobby to a prospective player(s) would vary from person to person. Something to ponder.

[Joyeuse]

Hello, I am the young blood in that quote! I don't really know if there's any universal way to get new people into here. The only reason I stumbled upon it is I was adjacent to someone in a WoD game I joined on Roll20 who also MUSHed, brought it up once, and I took it on myself to peek into it.

Obviously the first attempt didn't go so well -- I joined Fallcoast and just got sort of drowned in everything all at once, and it was pretty overwhelming, especially as someone who didn't even really know World of Darkness all that well. I sort of inched away until I didn't even open my MUSH client anymore. I decided recently, not even a month ago, really, to give it another shot. FC looks all but dead now, though, and it's hard finding something that really seems that enthralling for someone like me who's got pretty narrow interests setting-wise, but I'm giving City of Hope and this one Star Wars MU a shot to try and see if I stick with it this time around. There's a humongous barrier to entry, honestly. Beyond the archaic sorts of commands and clients, there's just /a lot/ that needs to be read into and learned the hard way, it feels like, unless you basically sit down and have an MU study session.

There's also the inherent expectation of like Wiki participation and set-up and dealing with that code too, on top of everything else, that sort of leaves things feeling incomplete if you just ignore it and try to keep things in-client. I can't remember if I saw it mentioned when I learned about Ares the other day, but the idea of a +profile (@profile, profile, etc) command that elaborates on the snippets included on +finger sorts of deals might be a good idea! I don't know if there's anywhere that does that already or if I've just been missing things, but that's just a note from a literally infant.

All of it might just sort of feel like, idk, standard from the perspective of people who have been doing this forever, but compared to things like Roll20 or other VTT and Discord, there's not a lot of output for the amount of input, unless you're directly interested in the sort of roleplaying and community that you can find in a MU.

TL;DR - I just got into it out of boredom and friends already being invested in the hobby

Edit 2: I've also been looking a lot at Ares, because I want to take up the Golden Rule of being the MU I want to see in the world. With 0 coding experience and half a brain.

[Ganymede]

@Joyeuse said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I decided recently, not even a month ago, really, to give it another shot. FC looks all but dead now, though, and it's hard finding something that really seems that enthralling for someone like me who's got pretty narrow interests setting-wise, but I'm giving City of Hope and this one Star Wars MU a shot to try and see if I stick with it this time around.

Without malice, I'm going to recommend that you not spend much time at City of Hope. If you're interested in World of Darkness games, you're best served asking folks around here the highs and lows of available games.

There aren't many any more, despite what you may want to hear.

[Joyeuse]

What primarily keeps me there, though, is just being able to write. I've been trying to piece together attempts at possibly running PRPs because I want to contribute to worlds that feel like they're sort of persistent and living around whatever I'm doing. Some moreso than others, but with the same conceit, without falling into the "Living Worlds" of communities like Roll20. I enjoy writing multiple descriptions, fluffing out different facets of a character who's playing a minor part in a sprawling tale of a city or an entire galaxy. There's a lot of scale there and that's definitely one of the draws for me. There's definitely some clunk, but it's worth working around, at least for me, in the pursuit of the kind of avenues it can take me.

I mean, that's just how it feels so far. Maybe I'll get disenchanted and lose the stars in my eyes after a little longer and some of the uglier parts start to rear their head.

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Joyeuse said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I decided recently, not even a month ago, really, to give it another shot. FC looks all but dead now, though, and it's hard finding something that really seems that enthralling for someone like me who's got pretty narrow interests setting-wise, but I'm giving City of Hope and this one Star Wars MU a shot to try and see if I stick with it this time around.

Without malice, I'm going to recommend that you not spend much time at City of Hope. If you're interested in World of Darkness games, you're best served asking folks around here the highs and lows of available games.

There aren't many any more, despite what you may want to hear.

Oh. There's that disenchantment lol. I've been trying to ignore threads about it, living on willful ignorance. I'll take that advice into mind, though, and poke around at what's there! (I've been looking at that one Ares game, Grey Harbor(?), and might just move onto that for the paranormal fix.)

(I've already sort of been looking for an alternative, but I've fallen into the trap of getting too attached to a character and being reluctant to leave them behind.)

[Joyeuse]

Also a thought: advertising? Are any MU advertised outside of communities that are already heavy into MU*ing?

[Ganymede]

@Joyeuse

You may want to see if there are players here that are willing to get you into one game or another. One of the odd things I've found about this board is that, despite our obvious penchant for communication, it is very seldom that a request for RP partners in a particular genre or on a particular game arise.

Granted, some of the people here, sometimes, --

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Joyeuse said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Also a thought: advertising? Are any MU advertised outside of communities that are already heavy into MU*ing?

I see ads for places on the Reddit mud sub not-infrequently but it's a very different and seemingly MUD-centric crowd.