The 100: The Mush

[ixokai]

@Admiral said in The 100: The Mush:

2.) A senate. Nothing kills a game faster than a government that involves PC voting. If you guys go that route I give it a couple months before you suck your game dry.

It just means the PCs are a bit on the divided side and aren't coalescing around a single natural leader, so they'll be run by a council. Except the word "council" makes some PC's throw up in their mouths a little bit.

So they'll pick a set of leaders and are playing at making a democracy because a bunch of 18 year old kids are gonna get that right.

There's no OOC mandate that it has to work, that anyone has to do what it says, that it has any "real" power, there's not a bunch of NPCs who are going to "enforce" it.

I lay even odds that the experiment in democracy fails, but its an IC experiment, born of PC's trying to solve the leadership "crisis" / "issue" and unify despite the fact that they have different ideas of what the hell they should be doing.

[Lotherio]

@ixokai

18 year olds ... It only ends one way ...

"I have the conch!"

resounding squish!

[Seraphim73]

@TNP said in The 100: The Mush:

Staff said death can't happen by dice roll so it sounds like it's standard.

I should clarify this, by the way (and on the game too). Death /can/ happen by dice roll, but it can't happen /just/ by dice roll. So a single bad die roll won't kill a character (it may cause serious consequences, but not death), but player/character choices plus bad die rolls certainly can.

[GirlCalledBlu]

Seconding Seraphim here.

The 100 MUSH is a non-consent game with a big emphasis on ICA=ICC. Personally, it is not the job of Staff to attempt to kill PCs at every turn, but put them in harm's way and/or high risk, and see what choices they make and whether or not those choices carry negative, or even life-threatening consequences.

Clarifying the Consent policy might be necessary.

In regards to the Senate: we're a PC-lead game. Staff puts out the story arc, throws out hooks and points of interest, but PC action really dictates the direction the game goes. If the Delinquents create a mini society and it thrives before the Adult Arkers come down, then they may actually be able to stand on their own feet -- which would be a deviation from the show, and is something we're okay with.

Goal is not to create a railroaded game that follows the TV show each step of the way, but start out with a similar storyline and see where the PCs take it. No point in squashing a IC idea because "it might be bad for the game." If it doesn't work ICly, I think we have a smart enough group of players to take that failure and roll with it instead of turning it into an OOC issue.

[GirlCalledBlu]

Also, just as another note: Luck points matter. If you're in a fight, KO, and don't have Luck to stand back up, and no one comes to your aid? You'll probably get coup de grace'd. This is noted in Combat 101 (here: http://the100.wikidot.com/combat-101 "If a character is KOed by an enemy, and that enemy is not engaged by someone else, the enemy may Pass its action and finish the KOed character off in the next round."

Note the uses of the word "may." This really is where IC action can dictate what happens next.

[Deleted]

I don't feel that anything I said was refuted by any of the replies, however I have nothing against the game.

I'm just stating what I've seen happen to similar games over the years. Maybe this will be the one to buck the trend. That would be awesome. It would be really nice to see more non-WoD games around even though I do love me some WoD.

Player senate/council/etcetera? It sucks the life out of games. Couple that with a lack of risk of PC death outside of people who choose to die and you've got a big, safe bureaucracy.

[Warma Sheen]

The biggest thing that will suck the life out of a game if people don't feel like they can be involved in a substantial way. And I don't mean doing things or going into scenes. I mean the other players have their cliques and you can just tell that the main group is the main group - and you ain't in it.

On a game based on a show where there are definitely the main characters and the background folk, nothing will make people flee faster than feeling like background folk.

That's a player thing, though. Not a staff issue. Just depends on what kind of community you have.

[Seraphim73]

Oh, I don't know that either of us was trying to refute your points, @Admiral, except that PCs can die even if they don't want to. Just not from a single die roll (unless it follows PC decision).

@Warma-Sheen, I totally agree. It's been a worry of Staff from Day 1. We've been pleasantly surprised to see that although there are some cliques forming (there are on every game, no matter what Staff says), /thus far/, they seem quite willing to cross clique lines to RP, and there isn't a single one that's gaining power over the others thus far.

There are definitely some players who have grabbed the story by the reins and are directing it, but that's mostly due to them being very proactive, and those who have tend to be scattered across a couple of the loose cliques.

[lordbelh]

@Seraphim73 said in The 100: The Mush:

although there are some cliques forming

Cliques by themselves isn't necessarily bad as long as they have reasons to still interact with the rest of the game. People will play with people they like to play with, and not everybody has the time to do a million scenes a week. If time's a limitation, its often a question of priorities rather than exclusion.

[Coin]

Not to mention that cliques are necessary; it's just that in this hobby the word 'clique' has such heavy overtones that everyone loses their god damn minds over it.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Coin said in The 100: The Mush:

Not to mention that cliques are necessary; it's just that in this hobby the word 'clique' has such heavy overtones that everyone loses their god damn minds over it.

Yeah, it's a thing where I always feel like I'm getting sucked back into High School Mentality vortex when people complain about it.

Which is unfortunate, because there are actual issues that I think people actually kind of mean when they talk about the evils of cliques (sharing plot spotlight and making sure there's an effort toward newbie integration) that are really important to game culture and the hobby in general. But it turns into 'ZOMG CLIQUES EXIST!!!' in a way that's really lame and doesn't address those things.

[Coin]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in The 100: The Mush:

@Coin said in The 100: The Mush:

Not to mention that cliques are necessary; it's just that in this hobby the word 'clique' has such heavy overtones that everyone loses their god damn minds over it.

Yeah, it's a thing where I always feel like I'm getting sucked back into High School Mentality vortex when people complain about it.

Which is unfortunate, because there are actual issues that I think people actually kind of mean when they talk about the evils of cliques (sharing plot spotlight and making sure there's an effort toward newbie integration) that are really important to game culture and the hobby in general. But it turns into 'ZOMG CLIQUES EXIST!!!' in a way that's really lame and doesn't address those things.

And then you have the people who are always the victim of cliques just because other people don't always and constantly invite them to things.

Man, sometimes I wanna play with someone else. Or, even, most times I want to play with someone else, but I still sometimes want to play with you.

Or the people who don't get along with someone else you play with but get angry when you don't invite them to scenes that are already happenings with that other person. Gee, I don't want the drama, how horrible am I, right?

[Arkandel]

@Coin What puzzles me is people who've blamed cliques in the past about their lack of activity but, at the same time, acknowledge no one knows they exist.

I.e. they rolled a character, got out of CGen, found themselves a room to idle in, made few if any attempts to meet others, signed up for no +events but no one is inviting them to things.

It's actually a thing that happens. Very peculiar.

[Lotherio]

@Arkandel said in The 100: The Mush:

I.e. they rolled a character, got out of CGen, found themselves a room to idle in, made few if any attempts to meet others, signed up for no +events but no one is inviting them to things.

It's actually a thing that happens. Very peculiar.

Its a vicious circle.

Some do log in and page about for rp, getting the 'I owe my friend rp, /I'm just checking bboards and mail/etc ... here's a rain check' which is never cashed and the asker usually get tired of paging to ask for that RP, they get crickets on chans set up for RP when they ask, or see the regulars in a scenes, ask to join and are told things like the scenes are too big several days in a row.

Reality is probably in the middle of both these ends of the spectrum. We know some folks that are in the 'regular' group(s) go out of their way to play with others and make them feel included, just as we know there is that person or two that well actively choose not to play with others and is usually the one to make comments about how they don't like their style or think their a snowflake or don't like how they 'play' the game. Plus other circumstance like time of day and availability that contribute to make it seem like either end is contributing (inclusive and promoting RP as well as walling off RP in some manner).

It all happens, but middle of the spectrum, we all seem to find our places to play here and there.

[Lithium]

Cliques themselves aren't a problem. Cliques are only a problem when they are exclusive rather than inclusive. Where they promote RP only for the people inside the clique and possibly try to stop it for anyone else.

I didn't find cliques to be a problem on the game. I found RP ready enough and it was solid RP for the most part.

I'm sure part of it was my character design, and part of it was my work hours, but maybe it just worked out to not be a game for me. Which is also fair and happens.

[Arkandel]

@Lithium said in The 100: The Mush:

Cliques themselves aren't a problem. Cliques are only a problem when they are exclusive rather than inclusive. Where they promote RP only for the people inside the clique and possibly try to stop it for anyone else.

Cliques aren't even a problem when they are exclusive - as long as they are passive about it. It's when the exclusiveness is active that this becomes an issue.

A very early warning sign is people circle-jerking on sphere channels. "Lithium you're SO AWESOME, your journalist is sooo hilarious!" "OhmyGAWD Arkandel you're the best cop EVER, we're having so much fun!" And it goes on and on. It could be done entirely over pages but the intention, conscious or not, is to boast; our group is better than everyone else's. It kind of rubs it in people's faces too if they're having a hard time getting into RP.

But it's not until cliques try to take over, silently or otherwise, that this becomes systemic. They roll into groups with the intention of leading them - they all roll into Carthians if they outnumber the other current members and marginalize them immediately, for example. Or they vote for each other, IC or OOC, until they call the shots - in some cases they can even control who can get into 'their' group entirely, which I saw with certain Families on TR.

Compared to these things having 3-4 people sit in a room running plot and TSing each other isn't a big deal. I mean their scenes probably have a relatively smaller spillover on the rest of the game than they could but there will inevitably be some so it's not a bad thing on its own - it could be much worse.

[Sunny]

@Arkandel said in The 100: The Mush:

@Lithium said in The 100: The Mush:

Cliques themselves aren't a problem. Cliques are only a problem when they are exclusive rather than inclusive. Where they promote RP only for the people inside the clique and possibly try to stop it for anyone else.

Cliques aren't even a problem when they are exclusive - as long as they are passive about it. It's when the exclusiveness is active that this becomes an issue.

A very early warning sign is people circle-jerking on sphere channels. "Lithium you're SO AWESOME, your journalist is sooo hilarious!" "OhmyGAWD Arkandel you're the best cop EVER, we're having so much fun!" And it goes on and on. It could be done entirely over pages but the intention, conscious or not, is to boast; our group is better than everyone else's. It kind of rubs it in people's faces too if they're having a hard time getting into RP.

But it's not until cliques try to take over, silently or otherwise, that this becomes systemic. They roll into groups with the intention of leading them - they all roll into Carthians if they outnumber the other current members and marginalize them immediately, for example. Or they vote for each other, IC or OOC, until they call the shots - in some cases they can even control who can get into 'their' group entirely, which I saw with certain Families on TR.

Compared to these things having 3-4 people sit in a room running plot and TSing each other isn't a big deal. I mean their scenes probably have a relatively smaller spillover on the rest of the game than they could but there will inevitably be some so it's not a bad thing on its own - it could be much worse.

And this is the reason that cliques get a bad rap. In what is now mush history, there were a couple of big cliques that went from game to game doing this, taking over, and then getting bored once they'd run everyone else off the game, moving on to a new game. For the most part these folks are gone, though. Or moved on and grown up, in some of our cases.

[Arkandel]

@Sunny Agreed.

Most of the time I'm willing to give people the benefit of a doubt when it comes to their motivations, too. If a cool faction with potential is mostly inactive it's no big deal to bemoan their absence with your friends until someone goes 'hey, why don't we roll and fix it?' without considering those already there. That doesn't sound bad, right?

The phenomenon later on expressed itself in a more malicious - but still not necessarily malevolent - way when the same folks, developing groupthink, had a vision for what the faction or even sphere ought to be like no matter what the game was about. This gave us nearly identically xenophobic/isolationist Changeling spheres in several games, for example, where sometimes outsiders could swear only the names changed.

But anyway, I will never begrudge people playing with their friends. Hell I don't even care if they almost exclusively play together - to each their own, in this case literally.

My one objection is, if there are supposed to be IC politics involved, that they allow enough flexibility to make it worth it; so for instance if a group just took over the Carthians and I'm trying to create some internal tension, split votes, spread some paranoia or just try to win individuals' support that there is a reasonable chance it might be considered. If the group is OOC rock solid and every character is 100% dedicated to each other until death and beyond from CGen to the freezer it makes certain kinds of roleplay redundant.

[Sunny]

@Arkandel Well, that's because it really was only the names that changed, in most of those cases. I agree, though. To a certain extent. The behaviors of the groups in question (and yes, there were more than one of these damn groups) was absolutely destructive, even if it wasn't malevolent (In some of those cases, yes, it /was/ malevolent: see Spider and co.). It was a problem, again and again. So I can see why folks would be shy about it, even if we don't really have these cliques making their rounds any more. People are still worried about Them showing up, or this or that group proving to be like them.

[ThatGuyThere]

The biggest issue I can think of with cliques is that it greats an OOC atmosphere of us versus them on both sides of the equation that can lead to drama or decline in rp available.
I was on a game where the sphere I was involved in basically formed into two cliques there was not real drama between the two of them both sides were open to RP with folks not in either and RPed some with each other even then some one asked a question pertaining to IC boundaries to territory, and boom that became a powder keg. the sphere immediately became an you are either with us or against us situation. I was hosed cause while I was ICly loyal to one side I mentioned OOCly the other had a point and tried to get some sort of compromise happening, so person "Not someone to RP with" by both sides. In the end both sides left turning the game into an empty wasteland.
Now that is admittedly a rather extreme example and while cliques/playgroups will form it is something i feel staff should be on the look out for to be ready to diffuse said drama before it hits a boiling point.