Outside the Box MU* Design/Theory
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To me code needs to help tell the story, bring people together, or otherwise get out of the way of RP. Sometimes code is necessary, depending on the system, for being an impartial mediator for combat for example or for other contests. I have played super code heavy games like ATS, and while it can be fun, it also takes away from RP.
The heavy code emphasis made it so you could play the whole game while rarely seeing another person face to face. You could trade, or you could hunt pirates, or various npc ships, etc. Face to faces were exceedingly rare and that level of code stymied the RP.
Back in the day though I had some fabulous RP there, now, not so much.
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I would actually really love form MUD/Rogue-like code styling for Werewolf Hunts and Vampire feedings and shit like that. Mostly as an optional thing. I'd even be willing to work on the text/auto-poses/whatever to make them feel engaging and cool.
A Sacred Hunt could, for example, provide an entire Pack with a Hunt based around a spirit with X stats, in Y type of terrain, over the course of Z time. And challenge them with dice while telling them in broad strokes what is happening so the players can pose in the middle, giving the code a prompt to continue after they're done posing that particular bit out.
It would be much more of a "helpful passive ST guiding a scene" than a straight up fight-against-code scneario (though you could add coded combat at the end, I suppose).
Obviously, this wouldn't be simple in the slightest.
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@BobGoblin said:
Was the 'mini game' a required part of the game? Did it become the focus of the game? Was it set up in a way to encourage RP while undertaking the crystal gathering or was it just a sort of 'grindy' activity that was there?
No, it wasn't required. No, it didn't encourage RP while cutting crystal since it was a mostly solo activity (2 people at most). It literally could takes hours of 'flying' over a coded grid just to find a landing spot (stuck alone in your sled). Most people scripted it I imagine and did something else in another window.
This was entirely canon for the series since Crystal Singers were paranoid, antisocial assholes for the main part who cared about crystal more than people (naturally, the main characters is the exception to this. mostly). But the less RP there was, the less reason not to go hunt down crystal which led to less RP ad infinitum.
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@ThatGuyThere said:
When it interferes with rp rather then facilitates rp is my answer, granted i know that is horribly imprecise and will differ for each game but that is also the truest answer I can think of.
Yep. And it's easy to have a 'too much' situation where adding more helps: eg, you've got obfuscate code, but no code to allow people who ICly can see through it to see through it. Either don't code obfuscate and have everybody roll and ICly behave as if they really can't see it if they fail, or add code to give them as have the right powers an automagic chance of seeing through it.
I once had a character who was shot with a shotgun his first hour on the grid. The PC who shot him said that he wanted to hit him over the head with the gunstock, not shoot him, but was told that the code demanded that he shoot once he'd wielded. I think in that particular case the GM was just being silly, but that sort of thing does happen. It really mucks up the game for me if I'm told I cannot do something that's possible in the imaginary world because the code won't support it.
