Posts made by Arkandel

@lisse24 said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

is just not fun to me, and I don't understand people who want to play the gazillion XP vampirewerewolfmage and win with no cost. I agree with the other person who says they don't really see many dark WoD games out there, because if you're going to explore dark themes, then there has to be cost and consequences and in most cases, that just doesn't exist.

But that's the thing. It's not the XP. You can make some pretty damn powerful characters with relatively little - practically right out of CGen - so you can get good academic rolls, some melee, some firearms, etc.

The problem is people playing to win, not systems that can't be beaten. It's on us.

@ganymede said in nWorld of Darkness 1E v 2E:

@killer-klown said in nWorld of Darkness 1E v 2E:

Like, traditionally, a vampire with low blood could just choose to not spend it and be otherwise ok. A vamp in 5th would have issues doing something as mundane as driving or studying while hungry - which is far more realistic.

My children have issues with doing mundane things while hungry, so I hear you.

Your kids are 5th Gen vampires?

That explains so much.

@saosmash said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@arkandel Fair.

The only reason I said (?) anything is because you don't really want to play the IC consequences game with these guys. It doesn't work, that's literally their playground and how they push this stuff on people who don't want it - it's the MUSH equivalent of the "if you don't like it, sue me!" approach, daring their intended audience to be on display. They'll debate it to death, nitpick everything and nothing involved will be any fun for anyone else.

It's simply cleaner to separate IC and OOC discipline completely. Don't do this, or we'll show you the door. Done. No trial, no bruhaha, just a swift ban and life moves on without you.

@saosmash said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

I think it's pretty easy to avoid rape factories by making society egalitarian, outlawing rape and banning creepers.

@saosmash said in Let's talk about TS.:

I think public groping in a nightclub is fine but at a Starbucks is eyeroll. Idk. I wish I were more surprised that this is a difficult line to draw in the sand.

I don't want to answer for @surreality who's seen some shit, but I think the typical case is actually rooms like Elysium or 'seedy bars', and basically it becomes an unspoken challenge by people daring others to call their bluff about how edgy they are being.

@taika said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

The magic of Supernatural is that it doesn't take itself seriously. There's room to have fun and be goofy and go to those crazy, wacky places with it. But then you also have these amazing NPC's, like Pestilence, Death, and Loki. Death's entrance to the series is just... Amazing.

What I like about it is that there are no if's or but's about how the supernatural corrupts all who meddle in it, and not in adorable "sure, I'm wearing the Dire Doom Necklace so I'm kinda grumpy but I just use it to kill bad guys better" but rather in "*I'm going to end up trying to murder everyone I love within the next couple of days" kind of ways.

Also Hunters are badasses and they know shit... but they are facing things way more powerful than they are, and they don't know nearly as much as they need to, other than when they are fighting the most typical monsters. Sometimes they get lucky, else they need to hit the books and hope they find something they can use as a weapon somehow, else they are toast.

That's not because of the settings though, it's because of how we as players have traditionally set up our games. Characters are very often as or even more powerful than the antagonists they face, and they expect to know a lot (in fact, nearly everything) about what's happening through rolls. So what in a plot could have been a full arc of fact finding it's either handled in a random +job (which with Academics 3 and Intellect 3 mean you get 2 successes on average so it's basically a given), and then you just outnumber and outgun the critter to put it down.

TL;DR: It's how we implement games that's been failing us thematically, not the original systems and settings themselves.

@surreality said in Let's talk about TS.:

@arkandel 'Where it belongs' and what qualifies is a huge area of disagreement, though.

But it shouldn't be, and staff ought to clarify it if it is.

For example maybe the entire public part of the grid in the game is where it doesn't belong (such as in the theoretical Harry Potter example I gave above), in which case players just can't do that at all.

In a game like TR they can simply institute a "if it's okay for RL it's appropriate in-game too". So a gothy club would be fine, but a bar would probably not be. And then they can clarify for supernatural social places such as Elysium.

But what I had in mind was more than simply what characters are wearing or how they act in public.

For instance let's say General You as staff don't want to have sex on your game for whatever reason - maybe it doesn't fit thematically or you simply don't want to have to deal with it. You ask players to keep it between themselves or else. Then I go and creep Jane's player out after we've already broken the rules like the crazy rebels we are by TSing; does it mean you screwed up because Jane is less likely to come to you since she did something she's not supposed to? Is there a compromise between you having the right to draw the line where you believe it should be to set limits in your own game, and your players being able to come to you even if they violated them because something even more serious might be taking place?

@apos said in Let's talk about TS.:

In trying to draw it back to topic, I think there's a startling lack of awareness (real or feigned), that being sex positive does not mean forcing expectations on anyone else, and that everyone determines their own comfort levels for what they want to deal with. Drawing something into a public spectacle would be disastrous for anyone that is not comfortable speaking about it, and is similar to pressuring someone in a way that's clearly not okay.

Yes, that's a good universal standard - not drawing things into public spectacles - since it'd apply to most games. Other than Shangrila or a handful of sex-based games like that nothing good will come out of specifics of people's bedroom habits becoming factors in RP outside of closed rooms.

Specific games can impose their own policies although I fail to see how they can then enforce them other than by spying on people. You can ask that in a Harry Potter games everyone's pants need to stay on since most characters are underage but... you know. There should absolutely be consequences though if Rule 1 (keep it between the consenting adult players and their characters) is broken in that case.

Other than the two clausesabove above I don't really think any limitations need to be imposed on people. There's no freakin' shame in anything they do as long as it's agreeable by bothall direct participants. You want tentacles, you want chains, shapeshifting, cloned orgies? It's all good, these are just fictional relationships. They don't mean anything negative about the players involved any more than shooting people in the head in RP does.

Just keep it where it belongs and don't try to force or guilt other players into doing what you want them to.

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

The Reach had a very long-standing history of staff abusing players, and headstaff (of which I was one, even when it was happening) doing nothing about it. This makes staff look ineffectual because they were ineffectual. If staff wasn't excellent to each other and to players, why should players be excellent?

Another factor I think is quite underrated is we are seeing fewer MU* ran by enormous staff, and for that matter, being staff constituting a reward for players rather than... a job description. It's harder for things to be lost in the shuffle or for politics to emerge from a small, tightly knit team than an enormous group of them who're barely able to communicate with each other effectively.

Conversely game runners either take or are forced to take more responsibility for their actions - we've introduced a notion of accountability, albeit slowly, over the last ten years or so. It used to be staff were beyond criticism but that's no longer the case, which is a significant cultural shift in the right direction. Even when they protest they don't care (and they do, a lot) staff are seeing their players having expectations from them other than paying the bills.

But all that said, let's get back to the thread topic please. Or something somewhat resembling it.

Whether you have explicit rules or "don't be a jerk" policies it always has been and will continue to be up to staff to enforce them.

Nothing stops staff from intervening even if there's no explicit rule in place and someone's being a jerk. It's a universal principle; the people running the place are the ones the buck stops with. In MSB if someone steps out of line in some terrible way we haven't figured out it's not like we'd go "oh, shit, there's no rule about it - I guess they get away with it this time!".

There's nothing wrong with writing down specific policies per game. In fact as @surreality pointed out in some MU* that's necessary - the 'just walking around into private rooms' example was a good one.

But two thirds of the responsibility is on staff. The other third is on players who watch others get screwed over and tolerate it because it didn't happen to them.

@sonder said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

I did want to toss the possibility of discussion out at people because I want to make this new game on its own merits; revenge games never work and it was never our aim to make one.

I see. So FC will still run and this is a completely new game rather than a 'successor' per se? And the link between the two will be some of the same staff and allowing existing characters to make the transition over - is that correct?

Suggestion: Have an FAQ about this stuff somewhere, or if you already do, make it visible in the OP.

@ominous If I misread your post I apologize.

@sonder said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

Also please explain to me how I’m stealing a game from someone who is helping me code mine. This is so confusing.

This could be discussed in a different thread.

In this one! So what are you guys thinking to do? Can you please give more information to those of us who're not in the loop about the general intent about the new game, and how it will differ from (or be related to) Fallcoast? What made you want to switch over?

@ominous said in Let's talk about TS.:

Let's keep it off of the MU*s, though. Those places are already crazy enough without importing our particular kind of batshit to them.

You think suggesting someone should be removed from a game for trying to force other players to roleplay being pregnant-via-magic is a batshit notion?

I disagree with some of the knee jerk reactions we sometimes put on display here. This isn't one of them.

Official logo of the Hog Pit:

@magee101 said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

@arkandel said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

@tempest said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

If anybody doesn't get "Fallcoast staff is panicking because it dropped from 100+ person who lists to 30 person who lists in the span of about a month" vibes from this "advertisement", I think it's a case of being willfully obtuse.

This is the Ad section. Please stay constructive.

I do agree with the sentiment that discussing plans of opening a new game too early probably hurt activity (since it'd have seemed like any RP would be redundant) but it is possible to get those players back fast - for example by letting them resume their characters in the new game, transfer any in-game achievements (such as XPs) to lure in oldbies, ties to the old metaplot to mark the new MUSH as a sequel, etc.

We're a fickle lot in MUSHing but TR/FC has been around for a long time and it has a strong base, assuming the right moves are made now.

Which would have been awesome to see in this post. Basicially I just find fault in the presentation of this as an advertisement. This is more like a bboard posting should have been added to the Fallcoast thread until @Sonder was ready to have a full up pitch ready to go to sell Miami. This was either laziness or cockiness of brand that said "Hey look its us, just come check it out cause its us you don't need any further info"

Consider an Ad thread to be one simply because it's in the Ad section. That's all it takes. It's basically a game's staff saying "hey, we want you guys to be aware of this cool stuff we're doing and we hope you come join!". This qualifies.

If a thread really is misplaced y'all can flag it and we'll move it.

@lithium said in Let's talk about TS.:

FTB is a tool, but ICA = ICC is also not a shield.

No, it's a weapon.

Players and staff (who are just players with a colored first letter in their names anyway) are the cause.

This is very easy to see when new games open with brand new themes, yet people try to play the exact same way as they did in the last game, even when it stretches plausibility. So it's in a rural area but my plan is to build a high-tech skyscraper for my character's business empire, or a post-apocalyptic hellhole and I'm running a college student in debt, same as I did in the last six games I played.

Culture is very difficult to enforce by staff, especially when you're drawing from a very small pool of players. Staff are outnumbered by the players; it's an uphill battle and most don't choose to fight it since they simply lack the resources as they're dealing with a lot of other tasks at the time. So it settles.

@taika said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

From what I saw, it wasn't just the new game, but it was kind of a snowball effect. They cut ST xp, then overall xp, and announced the new game all within a couple of weeks. Seems silly to take away incentive to Do Things then tell players if they're going to Do Things, it's not going to matter in a little bit. Then be confused or upset when people Stop Doing Things.

This should be a lesson about the order of operations, I think.

What I found worked pretty well back in the day is when a MUD we were running was planning its next major version (well, it felt 'major' back then ). We knew there'd be a time in between while stuff was still under development, but there was no way to keep the cat in the bag for that period either.

Basically what we did instead was diverge the timeline immediately using the old code, and created a massive game-wide 'what if?' world. Players got to redo their same characters but in this alternate 'present time' based on that what-if - and it created a surge of activity instead since retired PCs were even brought back since their players were curious how it'd work out.

Then, since this had a finite duration which we announced ahead of time, once the code was ready we rebooted the game without the what-if but (if I remember correctly) allowed people to choose which version of their characters to bring back.

It was fun. Fun usually works.