@Griatch Nearly all multiplayer games, and I'm not talking about MU*, use usernames and passwords for authentication. That's a weird issue for that one person to have.
Best posts made by Arkandel
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RE: Evscaperoom - a full playable multiplayer 'escape room' in Evennia with a layered story and multiple endings!
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RE: Is this hobby on it's last legs?
I don't think the hobby will die. It's got a niche - there's nothing quite out there like it, and that alone gives it some pretty good odds.
What's quite likely is that someone else out there will create a real paradigm shift at some point, or that an existing implementation (such as Ares) progressively becomes something only loosely resembling what we would recognize as a MUSH even if it shares many fundamental characteristics. And that may take off.
Us oldbies may even look at that new form and wrinkle our collective noses at it ("that ain't no MUSH! Get off my lawn!") but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
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RE: Optional Realities & Project Redshift
This is something I was told way back when I was first getting into WORA and I think it applies to MSB as well.
We're a pool of sharks. We'll bite anyone, including each other, especially if we smell blood. But there are no real favorites - everyone gets bruised around here at one time or other, so as long as people have a relatively thick skin they're fine.
The caveat: What this community dislikes above all things (and detects it at a pretty decent rate) is a fake. Just be upfront, don't ever lie and don't feed us jargon. When it comes to gaming (online but also otherwise) many people here have considerable experience, we don't need things beautified since it often comes out as patronizing instead. Just tell it like it is.
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RE: Is this hobby on it's last legs?
@GangOfDolls Hey, you might be living in a simulation right now.
They need to fix the customization options though and the grind is brutal. Maybe the next patch will fix it.
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RE: Returning to MU*ing, looking for recommendations
@greenflashlight said in Returning to MU*ing, looking for recommendations:
@pyrephox Huh. I figured it's because whatever pisses a person off about this or that WoD game won't be solved by making a new one, since whoever did the thing on the other game would come over to yours.
I feel you described the motivation for 80% of all WoD MU* as well as the outcome.
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RE: Pick Your Poison: A Chronicle of Darkness Interest Check
@Cobaltasaurus said:
Eeeh. That sounds super unfun. "You hunt X but you know nothing about X". Hunters should know things. I mean isn't that the point of a lot of Monster Hunting things/Serial Killer Dramas? "Those who hunt monsters should be careful least monsters they become"?
They do know things! They know vampires exist - they drink blood, they hypnotize people. There are rumors they even have long-term control over them.
But you don't know about the Camarilla or the Lancea Sanctum; some of them are priests or something but is it a cover? Were they just clergy when the got bitten? Why were those two fighting in the back alley?
Then the theme you mention can absolutely take place as Hunters enter the arms war. They're terribly outmatched in nearly every way so to catch up they start doing iffy things (which you can encourage through plot); burn down a building with some bloodsuckers inside but maybe some mortals get hurt.
Then they get access to supernatural weapons which, while potent, come with drawbacks and their use has consequences. How far are they willing to go to catch up? Who are they willing to ally themselves with to go toe to toe with the enemy? How long until their own former friends hunt them down?
That's how I'd do it. Well, one way of how I would.
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RE: Idling all day on MU*s
@mietze said in Idling all day on MU*s:
What does it matter?
I think it's a psychological (and selfish) concern.
"I am bored yet look, 25 people are online but 18 of them are idle when they could be playing with me right now."
The obvious fallacies:
- if they weren't online I wouldn't be less bored
- maybe they aren't idle when I am (due to timezones, schedules, etc)
- many players target favorite partners (you're meeting Bob to finish a scene) so they're waiting for them to get on
- even more players log on MU* to chat more than to play. I know, it's shocking
- it's none of my damn business why you are online but idlying.
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RE: Eldritch - A World of Darkness MUX
@lordbelh said:
Mind, being SuperFriends doesn't mean you have to actually spill Sphere secrets. In fact you really shouldn't unless you can't help it. And if you do spill secrets, them being your SuperFriend is not an excuse, and you shouldn't expect other PCs or NPCs to give you a break because feelings. Especially you shouldn't get OOC angry.
If anything I get OOC irritated when people do this for no reason. Just the other day my Mage was in a room where someone started just spilling everything about a sphere which wasn't theirs either. It hadn't even come up! It was just, like, a conversation starter - 'hey, let me tell you all about <X>'. And it was accurate, too, not colored by perception (and misperception) or clouded in something resembling dread or incomprehension but straight to the point, like a wikipedia article. My PC had no reason to mind that, in fact it probably benefits him, but it pissed me off.
But nothing can be done about it.
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RE: MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't)
@runescryer Disclaimer: I haven't played on a comic book MUSH for long, so this is all conjecture.
But the issue is that in the comics the plot takes care of the power discrepancy. It's how you can get Thor and Hawkeye on the same adventure and still give them opportunities to shine.
On a game all that goes out the window unless players are very considerate of each other. Thor's player will optimize the use of his myriad powers because fuck Hawkeye.
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RE: Destiny - A fantasy MU*
@icanbeyourmuse My only suggestion about theme design is this: Don't do theme design by committee.
Have one person (or very tiny group who know each other very well and have a proven record of bouncing ideas off of each other) do it. You can fine tune things later but that initial stage, in my experience, isn't one where wider collaboration pays off.
Come up with something that excites you, that makes the game's primary participants go "I want to do this so badly". Then do it.
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RE: Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them
@sunny said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
The longer I participate in this hobby, the more I come to the conclusion that this platform is bad for competitive play. It does cooperative very well, but actual players competing with other players, due to the distance between people and how human brains work, actual competition is ultimately poison.
I agree. It is sad, because having a good antagonist can really add to an environment, but the cons outweigh the pros.
However my caveat here is that competition kind of... comes with the hobby, too, whether there are black hats involved or not. Many players want to be special and stand out (which I won't analyze) but MU* social systems are often designed a bit like dancing chair games; your playerbase of 30 may only have 10 'ranks' - there is only one Prince, 5 Primogen, etc - so there you have it... competition.
My anecdotal example in this regard was from years ago when someone rolled a new chef into a sphere and the existing chef complained OOC about it. There can only be one!
Sometimes even where no antagonism intended we go ahead and invent it anyway.
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RE: Bump In The Night: A Chronicles of Darkness MUX
TIL @lordbelh is an elite game-destroying hacker.
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RE: Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them
@ganymede said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
And yet I can count the number of times I have seen players with the crown fulfill the responsibilities that come with it on my fingers.
Yup. This falls under the same clause as people who want to be staff but not do anything.
It's the perceived prestige they want, and the access to 'inside circles', not the work associated with the positions.
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RE: Bump In The Night: A Chronicles of Darkness MUX
@tragedyjones BILBO HAD NUMEROUS UNEXPECTED GUESTS! WHO WERE DWARVES! ALL CAPS!
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RE: Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them
To also revisit the original question in this thread ("how to handle antagonists") I think an important piece of the answer is fostering faith in the system.
That is not easy. The MU* culture is very cautious, bordering on paranoid, and trusting one's fellow players is not at all a given.
Hell, trusting staff isn't. There is so much baggage! Is staff placing hurdles in my PC's way to make the journey more interesting, or is it that they don't like me? Is it that they want their buddies to get it instead than me? Is it?
That's where I'd begin. Because it is different when the antagonist happens to have earned a good reputation. When ES ran her occasional black hats people lined up to have their characters' souls crushed. It can happen.
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RE: ROGUE: It is coming...
@Auspice What does an RP admin do?
I imagine someone tapping their foot while looking at the pose-production dipping this week on the Excel sheet. Those numbers won't do, man! Someone's gotta take the fall for this and it ain't gonna be them!
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RE: Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them
The part about super-friends I'm not crazy about is when it's trivialized. That's it. The too-cool-for-school mindset that rolls over these things for everyone.
Werewolf Bob: "HOLY SHIT I FOUND OUT VAMPIRES EXIST JOE IS ONE HOLY SHIT"
Werewolf Jane: "Lol. I was at their Elysium last night to watch the new Sanctified Primogen conduct Midnight Mass."
Werewolf Bob: "..."The reason I dislike it is because it taints future interactions. How is Bob supposed to build up to the next small tidbit of apocrypha he pries out of Joe and feel legitimate excitement about it when Jane has read the fucking handbook IC and knows everything there is to know complete with its canonical terminology?
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RE: Fallen World MUX!
This Mage 2.0 cheat sheet I found on Reddit might come in handy for some people. Please note I didn't make it.
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RE: Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings
I'll throw my idea in the mix. I had been once (a long time ago) intending to try and make it into a MU.
Superheroes meets Lord and Ladies. A nation led by a JLA-like family of NPCs, supported by 'champions' who are essentially metahumans - which is what PCs would play.
The idea in my original writeup is to have a small kingdom like that surrounded by much larger Empires who'd consume it if it wasn't for the champions' ability to defend it.
Each House would be the equivalent of a generational superhero team with its background, rivalries with and ties to other Houses (think Titans and the Bat-family), specializations in purpose, powers and goals, etc.