@Kanye-Qwest said:
people aren't playing the monsters so there's no urge to befriend/have sex with/become them.
I would never go as far as to claim there is such a thing people don't want to have sex with.
I mean look at @Coin's mom.
@Kanye-Qwest said:
people aren't playing the monsters so there's no urge to befriend/have sex with/become them.
I would never go as far as to claim there is such a thing people don't want to have sex with.
I mean look at @Coin's mom.
For starters this sounds exciting, I always felt Werewolf deserved a single-sphere game instead of always being that plus-one splat people add at the end of their favorite children.
I think one aspect you could use that hasn't been seen much is a truly territorial aspect for it; while Werewolf is never going to (and shouldn't be) L&L there is potential for harsh and intricate politics which is a different thing we never see; in most MU* it's always sidetracked as packs are very few and focused on doing their own sandbox-y things or taking part in strictly cooperative beat'em up PrPs, so they never really need to look at each other as anything other than sporadic allies.
So adding the Pure to the mix as well, and a real functional metaplot might just mean you're up to something cool there.
As for 'where' ... frankly I don't think it matters very much, so whatever you think is cool.
@mietze said:
Why is making a generic entrance pose to a public room expecting that everyone will drop everything to entertain you, rather than to gauge what the other people are doing and if anyone seems to be open to interaction? Hell even when people have oocly agreed to meet there's often a neutral pose first if they don't know each other ICly if it's just a bump into scene?
You know what peeves me? I'll tell you anyway!
It peeves me when people take the time to wait for poses, see what other people are doing, and then try to take over the scene with their opening pose anyway doing something completely different than what it's already about. A bigger "fuck y'all" I can't easily imagine.
To agree with @Ganymede, sometimes it's much easier to learn a new system from scratch than to have to keep the changes in mind from a system you already do know, but which is being used in a much different way than the published material.
@somasatori 'Gloria Vendetta'? 'Tucker Smash'?
This has the makings of a masterpiece.
@SunnyJ said in Brainstorming: Hybrid/Homebrew Werewolf Game:
@Arkandel I don't know about "the closest you can use a system the better it will be".
I misspoke (although you might still disagree with me of course). What I meant was "the closest you can use the easier it will be". If you use the nWoD GMC rules verbatim then it's at the easiest; if you are house ruling almost everything then it's probably harder than starting from scratch.
I can honestly say that after Secrets of the Covenants, my trust in OP mechanics is forever broken.
What was the problem with it?
@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.
@Coin Non-consent and consent, when done right - i.e. assuming all characters are played by mature individuals interested in collaborating with each other to tell a good story - are essentially identical. They only diverge when things go awry.
I'm a supporter of the proactive element in consent based games as I find the lack of paranoia fosters a culture of cooperation. But the two approaches aren't that different as long as the sandbox we-don't-need-no-mechanics factor encountered in many of these games isn't present.
@Spitfire said:
Why does everybody love Vampire?
Why do some people like chocolate and some don't?
@Wizz The flipside of it the same argument is that no matter what you choose to go with needs to excite you first and foremost.
If it doesn't then the project will never work. Period. There's no 'right' and 'wrong' about figuring out theme stuff like this, it's just opinions on different takes, but if you don't love what you end up with then stop and see where you took a wrong turn. No MU* can survive its creator's disinterest at such an early stage.
@Lotherio said in Kinds of Mu*s Wanted:
No to offend anyone, but I've never gotten much into WoD.
Anyone who'd get offended because someone else has different tastes than them isn't worth worrying about offending.
@TimmyZ If we look at any gaming mechanics as a RL simulation it won't check out. They're just not meant for that, systems are by their nature simplifications and the results can only make sense if taken with a grain of salt. It's gameplay that's important, not realism; the latter a ship that's sailed.
Now to the sports analogies in particular, even those are really specific. A gymnast has to rely on mobility and athleticism to rote execute specific movies, so their peak is very early; in basketball peak is between 28 and 32 (just look at what LeBron is doing in the 2017 playoffs) when the learning curve of mastering the fundamentals and refining certain technical aspects of their games meets their physical abilities - for instance 2012 LeBron was a beast but he didn't have nearly as good a three-point shot or post game as he does today.
To get back to MU* though... I don't know if I'd play a game using stat degradation with age. RL is enough, I don't need to worry about losing my PC's gains if I don't work at them full time.
@Coin said in The 100: The Mush:
What this thread has taught me is that no matter what, "good game" and "bad game" are subjective and people will always find something to praise and something to damn about anything, and that someone will always rise up in defense and someone will always double-down on criticism when that happens.
So, really, I guess it didn't teach me a damn thing I didn't already know.
Agreed. I think it's one of the reasons being staff is a tricky act since you have to find a way to tell which of the players' concerns are legitimate concerns about things which can and should be improved, which of them are simply a matter of them wanting something different than what you're trying to run and which ones are just entitled bellyaching.
People have screwed up misidentifying all of the above, sometimes with hilarious results. It is pretty difficult, especially since at the time of actual staffing a MU* your perspective is different.
@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
When you see a movie trailer, it's considered poor form to put in too many spoilers, but you'd never expect to see a disclaimer (beyond the general movie rating) about there being particular themes that might upset people. Even on TV, an episode has to be pretty freaking graphic to warrant a special "Viewer discretion is advised* notice on HBO because the general bar for content is "mature".
Spoilers aside, trailers are also based on either fully developed or scripted products; a director knows the exact script, full dialogue and all the actors in the advertised work ahead of time.
Storytelling entails a lot of improvisation - maybe @Ganymede will have thoughts about improvisation on stage I don't, but my general process for MU involves designing the general framework of a story - the major NPCs, a potential structure for the arc barring PC interference and a lot of spontaneous work in each scene itself.
Note this still doesn't excuse throwing dead babies into the plot out of the blue without warning.
@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:
- Have any non-staff PCs been granted the freedom/responsibility to be the inter-faction liaison to perform diplomacy as the player sees fit?
I can't fathom a reason to play a PC - staff alt or not - who are not free to act as their player sees fit.
There can and should be consequences, complications and sideeffects, you should obviously consider the theme strongly, but either you control the character or it's an NPC.
@faraday That's true, but how many adult games can you think of where domestic abuse or rape aren't plausible IC? That doesn't mean they need to be right there on the grid though.
The issue here isn't having a reasonable discussion about systems or somehow converting it to games, although I really believe we can cover a lot of ground using some the suggestions we've thrown into this thread already - communication, tagging PrPs, auto-matching squicks... if there's a little consideration from every side it's doable. We know it is because Shang has been doing it, and if they can so can everyone else.
The problem starts with assholes - as usual. Folks who strut this stuff - who show up with their NPC ghoul sporting a black eye, or run PrPs based on surprise-buttsex because it's IC. And the core of it is the idea that somehow this is in any form acceptable or even tolerable by game-runners - because in the past it has been.
You know what the major effect of implementing things like we've been talking about is? It shows that the game gives a shit. That it's an actual, honest, actionable goal staff has to make sure their players are protected from assholes - maybe if that checkbox is covered then folks who can be triggered might be able to afford to be more trusting.
Because as it stands historically on nWoD games at least players - unless they have OOC friends to intervene - have been on their own.
This madness of @SunnyJ and @Sunny posting on the same thread must end! Will no one think of the children.
@Roz said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
And yet I've seen people on this thread basically misreading stuff to be like, "You're saying that I'm a terrible person because I don't want to put up an outline of my entire plot!!!" I don't know. I feel like people are not so far apart on this as it seems to have come about in this thread.
And that's one of the reasons we need threads like this. Think of it this way - if we can't avoid such miscommunications or taking things personally here, where we're in an emotional vacuum since nothing has actually happened we're already upset by, and where we're just talking about it from a theoretical point of view, how worse is it usually when this thing comes up in games between players who might not be in good terms (or any terms) with each other, burdened by perceived agendas ('he's Invictus, of course he wants to screw me over') and already triggered by whatever's happening?
@Ghost said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
People need to read the MU-style policies and EULA things.
Although I still do think these need to exist I'm dubious about them doing anything. Most of the time they're just a wiki page very few people will ever read or even just glance at.
Culture is shaped on a day to day basis primarily by the tone staff gives their game through their actions and their inaction.
@VulgarKitten said in Kushiel's Debut:
Anyone else experience this?
I don't know if it's age making me more mature (snort) but I've grown a lot more thick skinned than I ever was. Things that used to bug me barely even register these days - it's more like "oh, they're trying to troll me" than actually reacting emotionally to whatever.
Basically I'm better now better at getting over it, whatever it is. Maybe MSB had a hand in that.
@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Either people trust staff to take their concerns seriously or they don't. If they don't trust you to deal with a problem, they'll let things fester or they'll just leave. I don't think you earn trust by having an anonymous complaint system that tries to track creepers. You earn their trust by dealing with issues quickly and conscientiously, so people feel comfortable coming to you when there's a problem.
"Be good and do the right thing" is not a solution for staff though; of course if you have proactive, available, open-minded and fair staff it'll probably work out. But that's like saying you shouldn't offer RP-finding tools either since great players will reach out, communicate and work it out.
You aren't offering solutions through code, you're offering tools.
Staff... get distracted. They have a ton of shit to do, from +jobs to running plot. It's easy - it's been proven easy, historically - to overlook things happening right under their noses. That shapes the perception of their role over time, which combined with the fact certain vulnerable players don't want to bring attention to themselves by speaking out too aggressively (what if they are judged? or told they are the problem? both have happened, by the way) they let things slide.
Again though, this isn't an anonymous system that I proposed but one where incidents aren't immediately actionable. It's meant to raise awareness about a potential issue, not to alert to an immediate present one. If people think including a justification is preferable ("he paged me saying some weird things about my PB's looks") then so be it.
But relying on thinking that if you're great people will feel comfortable coming to you isn't a solution, it's a goal. That's preferable, but what do you do in the mean time? Nothing?