Best posts made by Arkandel

@Tempest said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

Into the Badlands could be pretty dope. I'm pretty sure there's a crowd around who are always talking about wanting a post-apoc game. The problem is they probably want more Fallout-y?

One of the many, many, many issues that fragment our community (but also make it great in a way, take your pick) is we're so hard to please and won't compromise easily.

Sure, I want a post-apocalyptic game, but not Fallout, and no no, The Walking Dead isn't it either, I want Badlands - exactly that, nothing else will do. Or... sure, I want a DC Comics game but set in the post-Rebirth Universe not the New 52. What do you mean the Flash is Barry Allen? No no, I'm out.

It's just how we're wired.

@Alamias said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I can be guilty of longer idle times between poses, even a one line pose, because I tend to play from work so I have to focus on that as the primary. However, I do let it be known before hand that I am playing from work, and will possibly have these idle times, to let people bow out of a scene if they think it will be a issue for them.

If you let people know you are absolved of all sin.

Unlike commenting on youtube videos, which is unredeemable and I still can't get over.

@Rook I reserve the right to be arbitrarily hypocritical. This is MSB.

Edit: Also I'm already a fool. Ask anyone.

Sometimes people are just unable to form abstractions in the context of games. That doesn't mean all abstractions are necessary or even beneficial, just that some are.

There was a guy on Arx who insisted on figuring out if cement was invented in that world. How were they making the kinds of buildings they were without it? How?

But that's not a very interesting question to answer. And each time one is answered someone will push for more ("so if I have that, can I create asphalt? I can, right? Then we can have better roads! Then if we can harvest the power of steam we can have an industrial revolution!").

Just let it be, dammit.

I don't know if this counts. Probably not. But it's probably one of the 'worst' things I've done in this hobby, and that's the story you degenerates will get from me.

During my University freshman year I got into RP online. I had played on MUDs before mind you but at that point they were basically text-based MMORPGs; kill mobs, get gear, level up. So I started playing more and more. Plus there were other video games (Daggerfall!) I was into, and those were big time timesinks as well.

Around the same time since I had already been coding for a few years (and while this was a computer science program not everyone had necessarily done any development before) it wasn't rare to hang out at my dorm room with other students, going over our assignments and whatnot. Some of them stayed later than others.

You can probably see where this is going. So a specific girl stayed around much longer after everyone else left. And we weren't even chatting about studies at that point, just about... you know, stuff in general. Life. But I wanted to play Daggerfall. Or log on and see if there were any public quests I could get to. What was going on in the White Tower since the last time I was online three hours earlier?

So she kept coming over and I kept just... thinking this was about C++ assignments even though we never really discussed code. This went on for a few weeks (probably less than that, it's just how I remember it ) until she gave up and stopped inviting herself over.

No, I had no idea.

No, I did not get a clue until years later. Literally not until a common friend asked me how that had gone - she thought we had just kept it private. I do recall answering with "uh, until what went what now?".

It's what it is.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to play something that's better than RL us.

In fact I am pretty sure if that factor was taken out then the RPG genre in general would be in deep trouble.

The issue comes when it's not about playing something better than we are, but playing something better than others are. That's when shit starts to hit the fan, since you now have multiple people all wanting to be the best - the most powerful, coolest, sexiest.

The funny thing is writers subvert this very well. It's actually a very common in-joke among authors about how their favorite characters are the ones they torture the most. Similarly actors subvert it really well too; they welcome a chance to play tormented, anguished characters rather than wholesome, successful, morally upstanding ones. Look at Chris Hemsworth; while Thor was a vanilla hero (up to Thor 2) he was getting really bored with it.

But roleplayers are different. A lot of us want the wish fulfillment of not being better than our real-life selves but also in comparison to others. I can't tell you why, but I suspect it's the root of our issues here.

@nemesis said in Zero to Mux (with wiki):

But learning your way around Linux is really the hardest part.

Even though you are right, I don't see a real way out of having someone involved in running a MUSH to know more than the basics in all of Linux, some system administration and at least a little bit of coding.

You can follow a guide only for that long until something changes enough to break... something, or the guide itself isn't explicit enough for that one part, or you start out with anything different without even realizing (the FAQ is assuming Ubuntu but you're on CentOS and apt-get won't work), etc.

These threads absolutely help though.

A good rule of thumb in all management is to praise in public, chastise privately.

So if a player screws up and you need to intervene, do it quietly, handle and document it only for the few sets of eyes that has to know, then let it go. A game never benefits from unnecessarily airing grievances and opening the floor for drama, responses and mud-flinging.

Plus the worst kinds of players thrive in the dirt, and you want to keep your players' respect more than you need to come off as the 'winner' of any argument.

@mr-johnson said in Comic Noir Game:

Sorry to do a double post here but thought I'd give people skimming through this who might be interested an update on the state of the game.

Thanks for the update! Also never worry about double posting to tell us about cool new games and features; in a sea of cat GIF memes actual content is always welcome.

@surreality said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

It's the 'OH MY GOD THE WORLD WILL END IF I HAVE TO LEARN A NEW THING!' hand-wringing that's common (and super overwrought) on this generally accepted and normal practice that boggles the mind.

See, this isn't necessarily the way it looks. From a game runner's perspective I can see it; they picked a system which might be a little unfamiliar but not that hard to figure out, why won't players take the time to familiarise themselves? From the players' perspective though, they just logged into a game they're not sure if they'll like yet, so they're sceptical about learning a new system just so they can even get out of CGen.

This doesn't explain everything of course - I know people who've been playing nWoD MU* for years and they still have gaping gaps in their understanding of its mechanics - but it's still very much a thing. Add to it the fact not every roleplayer cares for or even about systems at all; to many they are unnecessary abstractions. Yes, folks still need to respect a game's right to choose and have such things apply to every character, but it does explain why they do so half-heartedly.

@Tinuviel said in How to BeipMU: The best MU Client for Windows:

@skew said in How to BeipMU: The best MU Client for Windows:

If you DL Beip from the Windows Store

...then you have done something very, very wrong.

That's actually how the developer prefers it to be downloaded since it gives them some kind of usage stats and allows it to be auto-updated through some Windows automagic process.

@7Wonders said:

Personal circumstances like 'this player had a medical condition that has them offline at abrupt intervals' or 'they have a weird IRL work schedule' are one thing. Circumstances that are a big barrel of self-created drama llama are totally another.

Also, past a very conservative point please do yourself a favor and don't accept 'medical conditions' as an excuse for breaking game policies. If my self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome is causing me to be a dick to your players that's not good, but if I get away with it it's so much worse.

@coin said in Canon/feature characters:

• Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

Absolutely a decision that needs to be made by the game developers as soon as possible (and I would say before even beginning to work on this stuff). It will heavily decide who will be interested in your game and who will be absolutely turned off. Neither answer is wrong.

See, in most original works this doesn't matter at all, because newly appearing characters' power levels can flactuate tremendously but it's done with the intention of being used in a specific way - usually sporadically or in mostly their own book - or with an end goal in mind. So for instance you could create someone like Sentry who's more powerful than Thor or the Hulk or Lobo who could exchange punches with Superman and it's not a bad thing; it just depends on how they are used.

The thing is though is that on a MU* it does matter.

At a glance sure, a lot of OCs are going to be Mary Sue kinds of characters, but so could FCs; you could play up Superboy or Wolverine as whatever idealized perfect avatar for your personal empowerment fantasies as you like.

It's really the frequency of their appearances that can throw things off. Lobo isn't normally showing up everywhere, and the fact he'll steal the spotlight like oh-my-gawd is sort of baked into the character so if you're reading a book he's staring in that's probably because you explicitly bought the book knowing what you were getting into.

On a MUSH we know how messy things get - and the power level itself is only one of the issues, but I'm not sure they're due to the FC/OC disparity either. I mean sure, Thor could solve every problem Daredevil has ever had - he could stomp on the Hand pretty handily (hah-hah), but so could a cosmically powered OC.

If there are issues there should be one of three reasons:

1. The high-end characters, FCs or OCs, are restricted to the lucky few. Call me cynical but that's probably the most common reason.

2. The FCs are just played badly - and I mean 'badly' by whatever yardstick you choose to judge that from. Maybe Iron Man is played by someone crappy, maybe he's always shagging up with Black Widow, maybe he's a villain. Dunno.

3. The setting feels off because OCs are way more important than FCs. I can kind of see that if Batman and Superman are constantly outshined by DeathsquadRIP and Fragolas it could rub some people off the wrong way.

TL;DR: I think the power gap itself should absolutely be determined and made clear very early on, but also it probably doesn't matter too much on a day to day basis unless other things are malfunctioning.

@Lisse24 said in MU Pacing:

However, it seems lots of people want fast moving plots and lots of action. So I'm curious, what do you consider good pacing in MUs and storytelling?

The pacing for those two things has to be different. To explain:

In Storytelling there is usually a goal in mind, a resolution of some sort. As the runner you are providing the narrative but there is also an overall agenda - any elements you present are means to an end. The pacing needs to reflect that.

Scenes are different in that they are their own goal. To tap into Ganymede's reasoning, they are probably more like improv (which isn't to say plot has to be scripted either, but you can see where I'm going with this), and characters need to feed off of each other, and in some cases that's tricky to do in an interesting way unless they can hook into engaging plot points of some sort. In other words if a Vampire and a Werewolf meet in a bar without knowing what each other is, pacing can kill their potential to generate an interesting dynamic between them if it's too slow - because they need to have something to grab onto.

However in both cases the point you made is still very valid.

Specifically, I've come up against issues, where players want to go from meeting my char to Sharing All the Things within a scene or two.

Game of Thrones would be a piss-poor story if there was no build-up before dragons showed up to burn Lannister armies. That's what we sometimes neglect to do in the hobby, we just rush to the good parts without constructing the narrative first; sure, it's the big flashy moments that stick with us, but they only have any meaning if the entire story led to their ultimate cultivation. You can't just bypass those parts without them feeling empty... because if you do, they are.

I guess if we're talking oWoD... a lot.

I loved the metaplot in Vampire. Loved it.

@apos For me immersion means simply that I feel comfortable with the setting to plot a character's background, make plans, play that PC in the setting and not worry about whether I understand it or not.

At the point that intimate understanding of how the world feels and works becomes intuitive, and I only ever need specific points clarified, I am immersed.

@kitteh said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):

Obviously there's room for villainy. Let's say you're playing the racist/sexist/whatever char. What are you getting out of this? If it's mostly enjoyment out of being a foil for other people, cool. But isn't that mostly an NPC at that point? As a player, by default, you're some sort of protagonist, at least of your own story. Most players play to succeed, and while the better ones might accept failures along the way, generally they still want an overall arc of progress and achievement.

For starters I don't enjoy this; I enjoy lots of things. My characters are flawed in many ways - some of them are losers, others are manipulative jerks. I don't want to just play one kind of character.

But to answer your question what I get out of this is the ability to step out of my shoes a little bit. If I play a homicidal violent Werewolf it's not because I am inclined toward violence in real life - I am not, and I don't condone murder either. Likewise my last Sanctified character had very little tolerance for other religious beliefs than his own which would quite likely make him a bigot, and I enjoyed the way he felt he had to put on an act around those who drew his ire because it challenged me to stretch my portrayal to fit that - he was seething inside but the facade of civility was too important for him to sacrifice.

I've also been known to play much more traditionally heroic characters. They are still flawed but just in different ways.

Do you set that aside when you play one of these characters? If not, well, OK, now you're rooting for the racist/sexist. Now you're invested in their success, now you're pushing their goals and agendas over those of other players. We all know how much IC/OOC bleedover there is.

My character's success in no way shape or form reflects how much fun I have playing him. I don't root for my characters and if I do then it doesn't matter if they are nice people or not... at that point I've already lost the game by any metric that matters. The only way I can see justifying being sad or upset is if I lost the character before his story was told - that is, if the concept was just ruined, either due to death or something major such as exile, disinheritance, etc - which made him unplayable... but that's not what we are discussing here.

So these players often do make me wonder. I don't assume all of them are really what they play, but at a point you do have to consider what they're getting out of it.

It's just such a risky thing trying to classify and judge people ('these players') based on a a character type that they happen to be playing.

@lotherio said in A new platform?:

I'm all for over the web. But why not use weblets and widgets and other API for functions the college kids will be familiar with. Why not ditch bboards and mail for some forum software similar to nodebb. I'd much rather PM and add to threads in this format than navigate bboards. And I'm adapt at their use both player and staff side. People are still surprised with the ability to reply to bboard posts and that's been around. They don't question how to reply here or on other forum/social mediums.

Whatever solution ends up replacing telnet-based MUSHes as we know them will probably be more of a hybrid approach, at least at first. Although my preference is for something that generally looks like a traditional MUSH client (an input line at the bottom, a main window for poses) with all of the additional UI elements added to it(a Hangouts-like chat list on a retractable sidebar on the right that you can hide, tabs for 'channels', etc) or on demand. Do I want to send you a mail? I right click on your name, pick that from a context menu and do so. Do I need to CC more people? I start typing their names in the TO: field, get autofill suggestions, etc.

If we're going to hack, why not hack existing stuff to fit the interface in stead of working from ground up on complete overhaul?

In a way that's what some people are doing, although I wouldn't call those hacks necessarily. Ares already has web interfaces for some of its functions, which is great.

If I can predict the future with my vast prophetic powers though, whatever will come 'next' will be produced by non-MUSH players. A forum or table-top simulator will evolve to the point (or offer enough tools to permit) a persistent playerbase, some way to interface playing in different rooms, a way to customize the underlying game mechanics... and boom.

Most current MUSHers will join their friends who play there, and existing telnet-based games will be deserted wastelands even by today's diminished standards.

@bad-at-lurking said in Gamifying Plots:

There is a difference between 'clique' and 'group'. At least in implication.

The usual difference is this: A clique is a group you are not a member of.

@Salty-Secrets I thought about that. The problem then is I would need to sell the traits at a steep discount, which seems to undervalue them, since they would be less bang for your buck than other skills.

If you can buy Punch with 5 XP and can then punch PCs in the face then I can't sell you Lie for 5 XP if you can't use it the same way.