RP MUDs are 100% IC all the time. If your PC is in a certain location, they are considered to actually be in that location barring logoff time and therefore doing the OOC 'hey can I join' dance is unnecessary. This is beneficial in that it's much easier to jump in and play with people you don't know and experience a wide range of RP styles. It is also detrimental in that it's much easier to jump in and play with people you don't know and experience a wide range of RP styles.

RP MUSHes are 50/50 IC/OOC (or some variation of that percentage) and therefore it's expected by a large percentage of MUSHers that you ask before you join. I've never had anyone say 'no, you can't join this scene' unless it was an event I was late trying to get in on. MUSHers are, in my experience, pretty polite and welcoming OOCly and prioritize OOC friendliness. This may translate to pulling punches ICly or changing their IC playstyle to preserve OOC harmony. It also translates to expecting players to ask before joining scenes.

There is probably some major MUD/MUSH culture shock going on for OP right now, but really in MUSHes it's pretty much about finding who you're comfortable with. In a MUSH, embrace the clique, because cliques are basically people who have 'self-selected' (as we're apparently calling it in this thread) to play with other people who have similar comfort zones/playstyles. MUSHes have hugely varying playstyles not only MUSH to MUSH but with internal groups as well. This is something that's pretty hard to wrap your head around if you're going from RPI > RP MUSH, but don't overthink it.

This topic is one I've been thinking quite a bit about lately! I'm glad to see it show up here. It's giving me tons of food for thought

1. Tabletop vs MU*

Tabletops are like braiding a rope. There is a limited set of main characters and generally only one person controlling the environment. Unless you have materials that just completely don't work together, you can get something passable in the end without too much effort.

MU*s are like weaving a tapestry. Each person has an individual thread (or two, or three, or five), all of different lengths, and no one can agree on a color scheme or which corner to start from. Without excellent management and defined borders, it's bound to devolve into a mess of rainbow vomit. On the other hand, with that much going into it, you can get some pretty fucking awesome designs, too.

Tabletops are a much more controlled environment from the outset, so you know more or less what you're getting via knowing who you're playing with (or getting to know them via playing). MU*s are always changing and have great capacity for surprise. So with that in mind....

2. Social Dice vs. Physical Dice in a MU*

If a system has a social dice system, my view is PCs should not be exempted from it on the sole account of being PCs. It's better to either take the social dice and throw them out the window completely (which some systems do), or accept the dice as part of the system.

Here's an example of social dice used well as part of a tabletop game:

In a recent episode of Critical Role (a DnD 5e game played over a Twitch stream), a PC had his very rare and valuable flying broom stolen by another PC.

To deal with the theft, both players had to roll, one to steal, the other to detect. Then the thief's player rolled a bluff check to lie about where the broom went, and the victim rolled to detect the bluff. The victim failed both, so the thief got away with the broom scot free.

This is a pretty simple transaction between two players who were friendly (or friendly enough) OOCly. But if you threw the social dice out the window, half of it would be up in the air mechanically, and in a PVP MU* specifically, this interaction might have baited out some OOC drama with some particularly sore losers because the dice would have left an opening for it.

When social dice don't exist:

I have played RPIs that did not make use of social skills. The only social skills built into these types of games were essentially solely used for hiding and eavesdropping, which had all sorts of interesting repercussions. Social interaction was not governed by other skills and entirely left to the wits of the players. In these cases, however, staff NPCs being socially influenced was a rarity; in RPIs, much of the NPC stuff tends to be governed by code to essentially run shops, drop snippets of coded gossip/quest bait, or act as killables. Staff pulling out NPCs that were sentient and could be affected by negotiation of some sort didn't tend to need social code, rules or dice to play them out.

In the cases of these games, everything that had physical effects was solved by dice: combat, sneaking, thievery, assassination, magic (if applicable), and crafting. Everything else was left to RP. Game balance was designed around social interaction being ruled by something other than dice.

Social dice that exist but are not used well:

In many WoD-type MU*s, PVP social dice being nonexistent is often justified by an anti-creep policy. My opinion is this has the side effect of marginalizing social PCs in general. Unless a sphere has a powerful skill branch that makes use of social dice, that category is going to get dumped by a lot of people, because they can't really make use of it in general play. In addition, social resistance merits get dumped even more, because they're essentially worthless when you're hardly ever going to be defending against a social attack. If you're new to WoD MU*s and roll a social character, chances are high you'll never be able to display what your PC was optimized for unless you find the right ST.

Of course, these sort of policies tend to be pretty general, too. Players may roll the aforementioned subterfuge vs. empathy check anyway and staff might not care even if the lie was something completely bald-faced, like, "A unicorn ate your broom." However, they might draw the line at using persuasion to follow the 'unicorn ate your broom' line with 'and you need to give me your wallet so I can try to go buy it back.' Or, they might only draw the line if you then try a persuasion check to use the line, 'And you need to go home with me or else the world will end!!!'

WoD specifically is balanced to have primary, secondary and tertiary fields, but there's an advantage to playing a primarily physical PC in many setups, and to a lesser extent a mental PC, because of the research/crafting component. Socially powerful PCs certainly do exist, but very often it's in tandem with some particularly sweet sphere-specific powers that rely on social dice.

I realize this is not the case in all games. AFAIK, I think Requiem for Kingsmouth(?) had a built-in system for taking advantage of PCs with social skills, which I think is awesome. This is the only example off the top of my head of a game where social dice existed and were used to any effective extent.

3. Non-consent vs. Consent vs. Freeform RP

What's the dividing line between letting something physical be ruled by dice, but not something social? Particularly when physical dice can often have social ramifications? What's the difference between being thrown bodily in a basement and tortured for the location of a macguffin, vs. being bought a few drinks and letting it slip because the charming and pretty person next to you asked nicely?

I understand that many people do draw a line there, but I think it has less to do with the existence of social dice than a consent issue. In the above scenario, without the existence of social dice, a certain type of RPer would say 'I control the emotional impact of this!' and simply not let anything slip because they're too badass to suffer from pain.

4. The Importance of a Well-Defined Ruleset, Setting and Reducing the Sandbox Syndrome

Part of the reason I feel the way I do about social dice is because wiggle room with the rules and mechanics can lead to serious abuse. It's fine if everyone's in it to have fun and everyone accepts the same amount of wiggle room, whether it's for or against their PC, but that's never going to be the case in a large scale game of strangers who play from behind computer screens.

Defining the consent level, setting and ruleset in clear terms reduces confusion. In a tabletop setting the ST would be guiding the process the whole way through. In a MU*, staff simply can't be around 24/7 to simulate the same experience. I believe RPI MUDs tend to compensate by having scripted mobiles and much more emphasis on PVP. MU*s seem to prefer the player ST route, but this can get problematic with player STs not playing true to setting, or otherwise not running arcs that are big enough in scope to be any more than a one-shot.

When players are reduced to a sandbox setting, they tend to get bored and move away. Players have very limited power to change the world, so their storylines tend to stall out without major events to frame them around.

.... that's about as far as I've gotten in working this through my own head. Putting together a MU* is hard. Respect to those who manage to complete them.

Out of curiosity, because I've been putzing this idea around in my head, how many of you would take advantage of population code if it existed?

That is to say, for businesses built on a grid, if they provided hours of operation and a fire code maximum capacity, to basically build a formula that will give a numerical range of NPCs in the area, further subdivided by whether or not the locals are the type likely to call police or pull a shotgun on you?

Would you guys work that into your roleplay and/or find it beneficial? Or would you just ignore it?

Edit: Straw Poll

@Seraphim73
Immersion works both ways in your example there, though, re: interrogation vs seduction vs anything else. Why should a player get to ignore the results of social dice if they can't ignore the results of physical interrogation?

In a system where social dice exist, accepting your PC is weak-willed and gullible because you built them that way should absolutely be a thing, and I think using FTBs and avoidance to prevent rewarding 'pornomancers' is more true to the game system than saying 'no, you can't affect me because I'm a PC'. Properly used, social dice can be handled in a manner very similar to combat dice, which is the whole point of the doors system, although I admit I haven't used doors in a PVP situation.

It's better to avoid the construct entirely (avoid balancing around social dice at all, which can't be done in WoD's system, so it would involve going to something else, like maybe FATE) or accept that social dice are going to come into play, I think, or else legitimate social chars will probably end up having very little presence on a given MU*'s grid.

For the purpose of this example, @Duntada, I'm using the torture-as-interrogation story type. I realize IRL there's argument about whether or not it's actually effective and science supports that it isn't, but I don't think it'll go away in storytelling for awhile yet.

@Lotherio

To some extent I agree, but I think players should absolutely be pushing each other to be better writers. Players should be pushing each other to RP stuff that can be responded to and not just dead end a scene, try to use correct punctuation/capitalization, and otherwise improve their writing ability. But I don't think they should be prevented from trying concepts that would otherwise exist and be effective simply because people are more willing to deal with torture than mind control.

@Pandora

I think what they're saying is:

If A critically injures B and Doctor C isn't currently logged in, they would timelock the scene until Doctor C is logged in if:

1. A (or some other party) would take B to the doctor in the first place
2. it is feasible to take B to the doctor, e.g., they're not stuck in a bog with no cell service
3. for some reason that doctor is the only one they would take B to

If A wants to ambush B and make it look like an accident, there is usually a system in place for A to stalk B without their IC knowledge and wait to get B alone in a dark alley via a request that goes through staff. However, these kinds of jobs usually throw up red flags for the victim in a game where direct unscheduled ST attention is rare and can lead to complications.

Hi,

I'm @ThatOneDude's friend in question and we've been having this discussion for a couple of weeks. You guys have given some really cool feedback so far and we're basically trying to figure out how we would set this up and balance it.

So, first, what we like about WoD, or rather, what we envision it to be:

We like playing in this universe because we enjoy the danger that comes from being pushed into corners, badassery, politicking, backstabbing and genuinely dark elements that come with the genre. We want death and destruction, conspiracies (not Conspiracies, though those too), and struggle, but we also want to see character growth, heroism, and redeeming qualities. We love complexity, dark moments alongside humorous moments, and the question of 'What is it to be human?' that great stories can put out there.

The easiest way to do this would just be to run a tabletop with a few friends. I'm pro-this, but @ThatOneDude has rightly pointed out that MU*s offer the benefit of being able to really expand who you play with, which makes for great dynamics. But of course, putting everything into the hands of the players turns things into a sandbox, which typically isn't that interesting.

So, we've basically broken this down into several issues, but the main one is:

We need a metaplot.

The reason we all RP is because we enjoy a good interactive story, right? If the main goal was to run around and get to level 99, or to give you an alternate identity and social life, there are plenty of games out there that can accomplish it without us putting in all the effort of setting a game like this up.

However, running a metaplot is incredibly staff-intensive, which is likely to lead to burnout, particularly if the game gets bigger than we can plan for. Since no one's getting paid to run a game, we can't be around 24/7 to make stuff happen.

To take some of the pressure off, we'd like to:

1. Build as much lore infrastructure as possible that can be taken advantage of by PRP-runners.

More established lore, more pre-written NPCs and/or NPC templates at specific levels, and possibly a few 'stock plots' that can be retold and spun differently to have different effects on the landscape. My personal feeling is the more that's clearly written about the universe, the less likely it is people may run PRPs that are too unbelievable for the world, as well as make them easier to spot.

However, we understand PRPs have different quality levels and that providing XP bonuses for running them tends to lead to 4/5 of them being super railroad plots, monster-of-the-weeks which have no lasting impact, or becoming scenes indistinguishable from a social scene with a news bulletin at the end.

What's the solution to this? Well, we could force staff to read all the logs... but see above where this can't be our 24/7 job. So here's our working solution to that. Instead of giving a flat amount of beats and a checklist, we think we'd like to require basically 1-3 line answers to the following questions:

• Give a short summary (1-3 lines) of the plot.
• Who took the biggest risk in your plot? What was it? Did it pay off?
• Did any of your players take any surprising actions with their characters? What were they?
• Did any of your players manage to alter the direction you were going with this scene through IC action? How?
• Did this scene give your players any subsequent hooks for investigation into a bigger plot?

A flat amount of beats can be awarded to players as per the book rules, but I'm thinking giving small beat bonuses for risks taken by characters, particularly ones with negative consequences, is a decent model. I also think that putting STs into the mindset of moving stories along instead of checking beats off is a better recipe. We really would like to reward quality rather than quantity.

We want player STs to be able to influence the world, albeit possibly in limited ways. There's inherent possible unfairness that can come into running plots that specifically benefit your friends, for example. We haven't worked out exactly how to handle that yet, and it ties quite a bit into part B of this issue.

2. Encourage PVP in order to allow players to drive the plot themselves.

This one is hazier. Both @ThatOneDude and I love the dynamics that come from PVP. We've had some great times fighting each other ourselves, in fact! To us, player conflict is a valuable experience, but we know it often leads to OOC drama, and where there's OOC drama, well, there's the Hog Pit. So re: preventative measures, here's what we have so far:

• No PK until your PC has been active for a certain amount of time. I'm thinking from somewhere between 2-4 weeks of activity. I'm also leaning toward a no alts policy, only backup characters, but that's still under discussion.
• Any premeditated murder needs to be declared to staff via a job at least 24 in advance.
• Non-premeditated first time altercations between any two characters can only result in beat downs.
• You can kill in self-defense. Yes, that would mean you could be provoked into a fight that could end in your death! That's the risk you take by swinging first.

Of course, we will also declare that we want to be pro-player-conflict and discourage whining so as to prevent staff burnout. Them's the breaks, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen, etc. etc.

Edit: (I forgot to write this part)

We also want to reward PVP, of course. And risk-taking in general! Therefore I'm for giving some sort of XP bonus for dying in a scene, but this too is mechanically very hazy. @ThatOneDude pointed out to me that large XP disparities between characters means stronger characters tend to snowball while weak characters can easily be picked off. This is why he's for reducing XP to 50% upon death, where I'm more pro-XP cap. More stuff that needs to be worked out that we haven't found a good solution to yet. Suggestions are welcome.

@mietze
Dramatic audiencing is an excellent term for exactly what I've seen way too much of. There's a danger as staff of getting way too excited about your own plot and forgetting that great plots need to be interactive and players should have as much control over their direction as the ST does.

@ThatGuyThere said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

I have played mentor/ students scenes on both ends and while I would be find having my character ICly be a mentor for someone, any and all teaching scenes would be glossed over to the extreme because I find them eye stabbingly boring. You also mentioned a political mini-game for folks at the cap to do, that is well and good but again not something i have any interest in. I have yet to see any political play on a MUSH be above the level of office politics.

100% this. I've never played a MU* where I found the political play to be compelling. For real political play to work, I think active, invisibly observing staffers and an anti-logging atmosphere would need to be encouraged, which is somewhat anti-transparency. You would need serious hands-on staffing for politics to feel like they had any actual ramifications in a game, and depending on the scale of the game it just might not be feasible to try to do.

I definitely agree on the mentorship point, too. By the time you're at that level of XP if all the 'compelling' scenes you have to look forward to are typing out how-to-be-badass lectures, it's time to retire. I've never enjoyed 'justified spending' scenes from either end, because this is what they boil down to.

Rather than blaming the players, I personally think more emphasis should be put on how STs handle failure. Dramatic failures should be being treated as story opportunities, not scene enders or dead ends. Players don't ostrasize if they're having fun, and players take more risks if there is reward for doing so. A good ST needs to be able to read the mood and adjust vs boredom and OOC irritation. If you want to change how the game is played I think it needs to be from that end, unless you're talking about emphasizing PVP, in which case failure conditions and dramatic failures turn into a player trust issue.

IMO, the etiquette rules are typically harder to get a grasp on in MUSHes because MUDs have coded constructs to enforce the rules and are typically anti-OOC-chatting-while-playing. MUSH culture is highly dependent on who's playing the game and who you're playing the game with. Some people want minimal OOCness, on the ball posing, and are willing to get into PVP conflict. Some people don't want that at all and are likely to metapose or provide running OOC commentary. My advice is RP with different people and see who you like playing with. Unlike in a MUD construct, it's typically easier and even maybe encouraged that you avoid people whose company you don't enjoy.

@Misadventure Yes. Which is something some games solve by disallowing OOC chatter or outlining clear rules, both of which mushes are not usually inclined to do. Again. A culture issue, one which you basically need an active babysitter or staff bans to solve if they get out of hand. Which is what I said in my post.

@surreality I wasn't saying it was a problem. I was saying it was a matter of different cultures. I suppose I could have made that clearer. The point is that a lot of mushes don't consider OOC chatter a problem.

@Ganymede maybe. I'm aware that most mux-in-a-box games have ooc lounges built in by design, and that's fine, but like op says, it's hard to stop ooc oversharing when there is no actual rule. As for making a rule, where do you draw the line between 'so how's it going' and the type of personal life oversharing that drives players away? How do you enforce it without a constant babysitter present? Most mu*s don't deal with problem players until they absolutely have to. I don't see a lot of staffers enjoying adding an additional arbitrary rule to their list of duties, and the ones who would enjoy it are generally not good staffers to begin with.

You can narrow down the channels for this type of communication and some games do make an effort to make it opt-in or push it outside of the gaming platform, but it's very unusual to see mushes do that. Similarly, it is unusual to see players actively asked to stop making running ooc commentary in the middle of an active scene in these types of games unless they get particularly disruptive, or the reverse but related problem of players asked not to overshare the details of their characters oocly when they should be role-playing it instead. Granted, the latter happens everywhere but some games are better at minimizing it, while other maximize it by encouraging posted logs and wiki's full of ic information.

I guess what I'm getting at is that op's complaint only seems to be recognized as a problem by certain types of games which want to encourage certain types of attitudes, and that's fine. I wouldn't complain at all if ooc lounges were removed as I use them to idle, I just think they are a byproduct and not a primary cause of the underlying problem of driving certain types of players away.

I'd find it interesting if the premise of this thread was generally accepted by mushers. Lack of an ooc gathering place is a more rp-intensive attitude. It really depends on the game in question but I've found that mushes attract players who use the game primarily for purposes of social RP so it doesn't make sense to shut down ooc social conversation. There are other little ways they discourage players who want a more ic-only atmosphere which I think may be the type of player that op would want to attract and play with, unless I'm misunderstanding. OOC lounges are more a side effect of a basic attitude toward roleplay than an attitude in and of themselves.

@Ominous Ehhhh. I'd bill it post-post-apoc but general-genre-wise it probably can be counted post-apoc. When I say post-apoc I mean direct or near-direct aftermath of the apocalypse, rising from the ashes, the apocalypse is fresh in everyone's memory and/or possibly still ongoing but has largely destroyed civilization already, etc.

Voted 'other'. Would love to see a no-holds-barred post-apocalyptic RPI with active and engaged staff. (Armageddon is not post-apoc, no matter how it bills itself.)

Maybe everything got destroyed and they released the nanite builders!

@Sab
Is there a policy on group apps?

Just to be clear, are you opening apps on Friday 6/24 or Friday 7/1?

What does it mean when you say you want to go a sandbox direction?