Posts made by Arkandel

@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:

• What the Players Want Isn't Necessarily What They Should Get - I mean, let's face it. We've all felt similar situations before. Just because a kid -wants- ice cream for dinner, because that makes them just the happiest of campers, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. There are lots of unhealthy things that happen if they get their way all the time. The same goes with a MU.

This probably falls outside the scope of the thread but I can't foresee good things happening if staff wants thematic control of their game and can't have it. It's one thing to say it's ran as a sort of sandbox and things are fairly freeform and another to try and run an explorative, adventurous Mage game but end up with hardcore politics on the grid; it's been known to happen, in fact.

Now, what I think a problem is in these cases isn't (only) that many players play to 'win', which leads to white knights and cliques and... all that stuff. I think an even harder issue is that they try to play every game as what they expect it to be - what they've played before elseMU* - and not as intended in the MU* they're actually at.

This isn't solvable with rules and pages on the wiki. It can be helped by having the right system in place rewarding what staff actually wants to see, but the best way to set a direction, pace and ambience for their game is to actually make sure plot is ran that contains those elements. I can write up all the "ugh, so grimdark!" I want but if the actual PCs land in a faerie tale paradise where resources are bountiful and pretty princesses meet dashing noblemen in taverns to flirt then good luck with that.

It's also kind of a hilarious fallacy to expect the exact kinds of players who if asked "so what plot do you want me to run for you?" typically answer "I dunno" to know what themes the MU* should have. They won't. Give it to them, make it fun and it'll work out.

Fundamentally, I disagree that the systems used need to have as little direct staff intervention as possible. I think that staff are ultimately the ones who tailor both the world and the story, and while PCs can do meaningful things inside of it, the 'hands off' staffing approach is really not a great idea for making sure that this sort of things comes to pass.

Staff should absolutely be able to intervene to steer the boat, and I have little love for positions of leadership being taken up by PCs for a lot of different reasons; what is suicidal is having a system in place which requires staff to have a hand in each everyday move made by characters; every snide comment made by hapless neonates or baseborn peasants to their betters.

What I'm thinking for instance, in a very general overview, is a system where each character has a degree of influence on the IC world. Some people have more, others less based on their positions, skills and attributes - it could be political sway over NPCs, judicial power, economic backing, criminal leverage, physical or military superiority, whatever. If that's in place then all you need is carrots for PCs to chase, which can only be achieved through utilizing those kinds of influences - because suddenly you're giving them what I called interesting choices; sure, you could alienate the Elder today to get on the hot blonde ghoul's good side, but tomorrow when you really really want to get your domain expanded to include that new mall (which gives you access to more influence in turn and opens up options for RP in the future) he can back one of your opponents instead. Oops.

That's an example of tangible choices. But the whole game needs to be set up from scratch to support it, it can't just be an addendum on top as an afterthought. Because then yes, you can still be a White Knight... but it'll cost you, man.

@Misadventure said in PC antagonism done right:

Thinking about the Conservative Primogen vs Ghoul As Person, I'd have to say that folks who are willing to fight for a no gain cause would be noted as non-pragmatic as reputation, and easy marks for distraction. So real deal makers would avoid them unless useful and possibly set up bad things to help "fix" as bargaining points from those sad sucker liberals.

How?

I'm not disputing this is what should (probably) happen, but what's the system which produces that outcome?

Ideally that's the main question I'd like to see addressed in this thread; not just what (which I feel most of us agree with) but how. And remember, such systems need to be as easy to use on an everyday basis and require as little direct staff intervention as possible .

@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:

Antagonist PCs should be at least somewhat numerous and/or powerful. Those two work on a sliding scale, really. The point is, there should be enough of them, or they should be powerful enough, that a full-force direct assault on them would be the height of stupidity. And vice-versa. They shouldn't be able to wipe the protagonists off the map either.

In the case of PCs in particular neither needs to be the case. After all players are (usually) free to play dark horse antagonists; say, a handful of Crones trying to make it in a Sanctified-dominated Praxis. There's no mandate for them to be either numerous or strong there.

What concerns me the most is when PC politics don't agree with the way the game is written. For instance thematically - in the wiki, NPCs, etc - suggests ghouls are suppressed but the situation on the actual grid doesn't support that; what then?

It's important that there are opportunities offered to both political sides when friction such as this comes to exist - traditionalists should have options to flex their good ol' boy club muscles, dissenters to try and disrupt existing operations to try and force concessions over time - else there is almost no point to the conflict. It'll just come down to people exchanging empty poses in rooms, and the most numerous camp will absolutely win 100% of the time, no matter any other factors.

That's bad. Several elements are missing in such a situation; staff thinks the political situation is A but in truth is B, players lack viable options to play out strong thematic elements, and resolution is decided by the least IC mechanism of them all - CGen demographics - which marginalizes any minorities regardless of their theoretical impact on the game.

@Misadventure said in PC antagonism done right:

@derp Two things going on there, the White Knightism, and the Only Killing is Winning.

It's been said before, but few players want to see their characters as the truly bad people, AND many people are adverse to "starting something" first.

Although I can agree with @Derp that people are eager to jump on the murderwagon and that's a problem, my own issue with this has been different historically.

When I think to run an antagonist, and in many cases that includes NPCs for my plots, I consider theme and then play a purist. Sure, a moustache-twirling villain has a time and a place but there's a shorter shelf life - and it's a much more niche kind of PC to play if that's the wanted direction.

So let's say (to steal @lordbelh's example) that it's a political Vampire game and I'm playing a conservative, traditionalist Elder who happens to be Primogen or whatever. He's Someone. He spots them ghouls walking around Elysium as if they were real people or something and he makes his mind known about them; even if there's no kill squad in response, the chance of everyone, and I mean almost everyone being liberal about them and ganging up on an influential Kindred (who could presumably be a good friend and a bad enemy) to defend someone else they can't gain almost anything from, is very high. If the ghoul's player happens to be popular OOC? You just got fucked.

Look, that can be grating for many players to play out. It can be fun to be the guy everyone's mouthing off to but it can also isolate you pretty fast; it's easy to get the feeling there's a page party going on you're not invited to, and no matter the theme or even your PC's position, you can also end up IC isolated very quickly. Being outnumbered, even over an issue where you're supposed to be representing the majority or at least be on the side of authority on, can be pretty frustrating in the long run. Not only does it limit your RP but it can also derail it - suddenly you're not playing the savvy, respected statesman.

Now, part of this issue is just the average player's nature. But part of it is systemic; if you give nothing up by being a white knight (say, opposing that Elder doesn't penalize you in tangible terms in the least) then it's a win/win. That, to me, speaks of poor game design where they are fewer interesting choices to make.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. It's probably its last season but damn this final arc is fun.

@Seraphim73 said in PC antagonism done right:

What the White Knights don't seem to realize is that when they do this, THEY become the antagonists--and not (usually) good ones, either.

I wish that was the case but in all honesty it's not.

A White Knight in MU* doesn't do the right thing, he/she does the popular thing.

I'm not sure someone who has the clear majority on their side ("ghouls are people too, guys!") no matter what theme says can be considered an antagonist.

The Defenders teaser (and release date).

@Three-Eyed-Crow But what metaplot setup for the Defenders did we get?

(SPOILERS)

... other than that there are factions within the Hand with different agendas what else? For all I can see, it basically sums down to "Danny Rand is a thing, and Claire has his phone number".

@Misadventure The series really strays from the books a lot.

More to the point: Playing on the MUSH will need to invariably refer to rules of magic, creature types, etc not mentioned in the TV series. There's no way to tip-toe around this without castrating the theme.

Always IMHO, of course.

@Wizz I propose we lift any (book) spoiler restrictions from this thread if we'll discuss it here. The Magician's Land has been out since 2014.

Guys. I know it's supposed to only be mildly constructive around here but we're stretching even that pretty thin.

@Thenomain Yeah. I think an index (with book/page numbers) is more than enough. I.e. "here's the list of all Werewolf Gifts". I'm not sure but it's probably okay for staff to use their own words for a super short description about what each of them does.

But not to sound cynical, yet it's quite possible WW/Onyx realize people talking about and using their product lines keeps them relevant. They're already not in gaming stores, their material is only printed on demand, so having an online community still cranking out MU* gives them a bit extra word of mouth.

I won't bring up the piracyelephant in the room though.

IMHO.

It's very hard to assign blame to something with as unquantifiable an effect as the OOC lounge on a game. Is it that they 'become trash' due to their design? Or would anything replacing it - such as the public channel - under the same culture and staff have become the same thing? Maybe it's better to at least give an outlet to toxicity so the administration is aware of it as opposed to it happening in pages and Skype?

Perhaps?

But the fact is if there are threads asking "how do we keep $thing from becoming trash?" where enough people are scratching their heads for an answer, combined with the secondary facts the $thing in this case doesn't have a quantifiable upside to it either, probably suggests it's safer to scratch the notion.

@Ganymede IANAL (you you are ANAL) but my impression has always been that fair use of printed material consisted of these two things.

• Don't make money from their work
• Don't violate copyrights of their work

Sometimes I feel MU* have been really pushing the envelope on the latter with their super detailed wikis, going as far as to copy verbatim the texts, effects and of course rolls of every power or special ability, for instance.

@Auspice Are you planning to support playable non-wizard specials? There were lots of really weird shit out there.

@faraday said in How do you keep OOC lounges from becoming trash?:

@Arkandel said in How do you keep OOC lounges from becoming trash?:

Why have an OOC room and not just the OOC channel? What's the upside?

Some people are going to log in without intent of playing immediately. Where do you want them to be?

Aw, come on. Anywhere. Give them personal rooms (which I believe all characters should have, and for more than just TS purposes - it's good to have a private space) or 'quiet' rooms they can idle in without spamming each other.

Then let channels do what they're there for, with a history function so they can be monitored by staff for abuse (as opposed to 'X said Y ten minutes ago' and sending logs back and forth after the fact).

The upside of providing an OOC room is that it gives a better feel for the true RP activity level in the game and can help find RP easier.

I think there are far better RP-finding tools than the OOC room - in fact that's probably a mediocre one, and its function can be easily substituted by ... well, a channel. RP-seeking flags, grid incentives, public +events, hell the +where command, these are all more effective ways of finding a scene.

I dunno, maybe I'm biased. I've never liked hanging out in the OOC room in any game, it's too spammy (without the chance to mute it) and too many attention-seekers make it their home.

One of the really hard parts to convey in a game - because they are not difficult but hard - is just how dangerous magic was in the Magicians' universe.

Magic fucked you up. One slip and you were fucked. Entire classes had been known to disappear - and that's while they were getting tutored in prestigious schools, not picking up tricks by street wizards.

In games that ain't gonna happen because, well, risk.

Why have an OOC room and not just the OOC channel? What's the upside?

@Lisse24 My experience with Vampire is some players go into it to play exactly what White Wolf explicitly states it isn't; superheroes with fangs.

@Bobotron I think it matters to the degree we are at least... acknowledged. That's something. And it makes a gray area a tad less gray.

The only issue here has ever been whether their copyright was weakened. No MUSH has ever tried to make claims on WW's trademarks, so if they feel more comfortable dealing with our merry community this way maybe in the future there can be more opportunities.

Or, even better, other content creators might follow their lead.