@Cobaltasaurus said in Fallen World MUX!:
@Arkandel said in Fallen World MUX!:
That worked for me on the other side of the ST equation too. It was an ancient Carthian plot by @Cobaltasaurus that got my Crone interested in that faction which he ended up joining
I like, don't even remember...
At least I think that was you. Something about bombings, a car and the then-NPC Prince when the Carthians were still banned from the city.
As I said, it's been a while!
@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:
How pissed off would people be if police PCs were disallowed? Because, frankly, the number of Police Departments in the LA Metro area is absurd and would mean your effective jurisdiction is fuckall.
It's quite likely some people might be dissatisfied. It seems easier to fix jurisdiction issues in the IC world to allow a kind of PC people enjoy (there are a ton of tropes about detectives/beat cops/etc in urban fantasy) than to let a little realism get in the way.
Top-10 player ever, best PF ever (if only because it's easier to classify him in that position and not the overcrowded center one).
And a true class act. Plus the guy plays D&D so there's that.
@Ganymede said in Fallen World MUX!:
It has been said many times before: PrPs should exist in order to "fill in the gaps." You don't need a metaplot for staff to run anything.
Mmm, yes and no - in my opinion of course.
The most successful PrPs, metaplot or otherwise, aren't self-contained. That depends on the players as much as the ST but the plots I ran and felt good about were the ones characters took out of those temp rooms and into the grid, recruiting assistance, letting others see them in their new broken-down state and generally using them as a way into legitimate character growth rather than just... joining an +event, doing the thing and never really referencing it again.
That worked for me on the other side of the ST equation too. It was an ancient Carthian plot by @Cobaltasaurus that got my Crone interested in that faction which he ended up joining, an Eerie-ran scene in Arcadia which got my Mage fascinated with the Lost enough to eventually become a Fate Master, etc. PrPs don't need to be fillers, they can provide sustainable RP if they are handled well.
Conversely it's one of the reasons I don't usually like violent plots. Not because they can't also be great but because a lot of time they are just... disposable. I can only do so much with a plot that has me rolling +init five minutes into it and ends right as the last NPC dies.
@Hushicho said in Flights 'n Tights MUX:
The one or two games that have ever welcomed primarily non-hetero male characters (keeping in mind that we also welcome straight guys as characters and have a couple of very secure straight male players who just like the atmosphere) do not exist now.
Citation please? I've been on several games non-straight male characters were being played.
I don't understand why they bother raising armies. Why not just send Hundred Eyes to take care of everything?
Right? Btw just in case you didn't notice, there's a Hundred Eyes special as well that's a prequel to the series. But yes, he is a bad ass, though personally I just want to be Khutulun when I grow up.
I did but I want to finish both seasons first because I didn't know when it was set in the timeline, and I didn't want to get spoiled.
Marco Polo season 2, y'all. I binged and watched it all in two days. Not historically accurate by a longshot, but well acted, beautifully choreographed fight scenes, amazing costumes, etc.
I just binge-watched the entire season 1 over 2.5 days. 
Fun!
I don't understand why they bother raising armies. Why not just send Hundred Eyes to take care of everything?
@Haven They don't play the alts consecutively... they are usually played simultaneously.
Don't get me started!
@Pyrephox said in Fallen World MUX!:
No, I get it. I just think it's wrong. "Something you will enjoy playing," is not a useful answer. ANY character I create is going to be something I enjoy playing. I don't make a policy of playing characters I don't find fun. It's like me asking, "Hey, is it better to take a right turn or a left at this street to get to this address?" and someone answering, "You should really drive to that address." It is not an answer that in any way addresses my concern!
Ah, but now we're getting into the 'a good player won't have a problem with that' argument. You know better than to create a character you're not excited about but others would, and have; I've had people come to me in the past a few short weeks into a PC going 'well, I was told/promised by that pack/coterie they needed this but I never see them and now there's no point in it, I just wanted to play it for them'. This is a thing that happens!
To get back to the matter of alts though, my one issue with them (past the ever-existent one where people in my scene are taking forever to pose because they're playing three of them at once and argh) is that more or less the same group, rather than just one player, can monopolise +events. By showing up for them (which isn't difficult, especially if they are being ran by the same ST) they take up 'spots' that could have gone to legitimately disconnected, idle players looking for something to do, which is a tricky thing to fix without extensive hardcoding or strict policies. That's because it's far easier to +event/signup and be online at 20:30ET than to show up on the grid with your third alt consistently enough to have a strong presence.
@Pyrephox said in Fallen World MUX!:
And about "whatever you'll enjoy" is just flat, flat wrong. Terribly wrong. I weep for the wrongness of it. It's one of the things that will flat out make me walk away from a game, because it says to me that staff has no idea what kind of game they're actually running, no coherent theme, and no interest in drawing new players into the game in interesting, fun ways.
I wanted to address that last part real quick. You missed out on the (theoretical but pretty frequently asked) question it was answering: "What's needed?". Since that sounds similar to what you're talking about in regards to roles. "Something you will enjoy playing, nevermind what's already on the grid right now" seems like a valid answer to me - it's not a complete one, but I wasn't going for that in my example.
@tragedyjones Is BitN dead? Or was it just a weird hour?
@Pyrephox said in Fallen World MUX!:
Because if you don't have enough characters to fill all the niches in your system, you're going to be actively trying to pull people in, and more accommodating to them. Because you NEED them. Otherwise, it's Applicant #25 of 450, all applying for the same data entry job - you're looking for a reason to REJECT them, not to bring them in.
(I like this topic ).
I dunno. It seems like a very specific way of looking at roleplaying to me - the idea that you're defined by your concept, and if you can't have a unique role the character is redundant.
It just doesn't mesh with me - PCs are more than hackers, warriors, chefs, aspiring writers or car mechanics. These are plot devices that might be invoked in different ways or degrees by char A and B:
A is always broke since he's trying to become a writer and stubbornly refuses to get a 'real' job. B is obsessively trying to improve, willingly making deals with the devil to buy himself some talent.
A is a chef so she opens a restaurant which serves as a hangout for the sphere. B is a Crone Acolyte searching for ways to find enlightenment through rarefied food recipes.
A is a retired US Marine suffering from PTSD and tries to escape a life of violence but it keeps finding him. B is a cocksure arrogant Rahu trying to get that perfect, glorious death to exonerate the shame on his family.
And so on... the same very general concept can be played in a bunch of different ways, some of which will become tired, predictable cliche and some may be brilliant depictions because of they way they are done, not what they are.
And on top of it there is a pretty specific number of useful 'roles' available to begin with... and the prototypes will be taken very quickly in a game of any real size. The week after a MU* launches there will be hackers around, and at least a few people will play the 'hangout' concepts (brewers, bar and restaurant owners, etc); in most systems there are also only so many powers; a few Arcana, a few Disciplines, and someone is getting specialised in them. That doesn't mean the ones coming after that don't have a place.
Oh, before I forget - you know how every time staff is asked "hey, what kind of character should I make? What's needed?" the stock response is "whatever you'll enjoy"? That's absolutely the right answer. The beer brewer who rolled two weeks before you might not even be logging on two weeks from now so your concept is rare again, but if you pick one you won't thoroughly find fun you're stuck with it.
In other words: In a RL company you have every reason to reject Data Entry Guy #11 if you only need 10, you're right, but in RP there's no such thing as a redundant character role.
@Pyrephox See, I guess I don't quite see things this way - that in order to enjoy playing one must fill a niche, as such roles tend to be relatively few and on any semi-popular MUSH they are inevitably going to be filled early on. Plus the mindset itself of requiring uniqueness leads to exclusionary tactics - I remember (and I've often used it as a cautionary tale) that Family faction on TR who rejected a newbie because she wanted to play a chef and they 'already had a chef'. I get where you're coming from, no one wants to be Clawy Savage Gangrel #4, but in practice it turns ugly real fast too.
I think distinction comes through ability and activity - the first can be present for an alt, of course, but the second can't. The last character I sank a lot of time on Eldritch in was rather formulaic on paper - he was a fighty werewolf. But I got pretty good scenes out of him and interacted with PCs from different walks of life because, other than what's on his +sheet - that very finite number of things that can be on there - what matters is how the concept is played, how it's angled to engage others and ultimately how it's received. I was active, too, which stood on its own out way more than someone who only showed up once in a blue moon; that's the alt edge right there.
As usual people's mileage may vary though.
@Pyrephox said in Fallen World MUX!:
Investment isn't the only reason for a restrictive alt policy. It's also a matter of roles. Games where all the available "roles" are filled by a small minority of players who have 3-10 alts each are considerably less welcoming to new people, and more stagnant, in my experience, than games with much more restrictive alt policies.
Oh, I agree with you there.
But I think any game that has a political environment where ranks/roles are in somewhat short supply (as they tend to be) needs a system where only active, involved people can maintain them - which is a separate problem to solve.
You don't want that guy's third alt to be a Sheriff, you're absolutely right, since he'll never be on. But you don't want the Sheriff to not ever be on, period, no matter what the reason is; I understand RfK had a good system to handle ascension as well as keeping what you already have - and if that exists then alts won't be an issue any more.
@Lisse24 said in Fallen World MUX!:
I've also never been able to mentally support more than one active PC on a game, and though I have PCs on many games
A fellow one-alter! We should have a club (and only allow one account per person in it).
I'm usually only focused on one at a time, and letting my others idle. So here is why I like a restrictive alt-policy: It means that the players I see on the grid are as invested in their characters as I am in mine. I think it cuts down on having alts idle away in bedrooms and apartments because people who want RP only have one char to do it in. It cuts down on conflicts where a PC with one char is ducking me because they want to play with me on another alt. It stops PC-churn, because people are less likely to create a neat concept just because when they know they'll have to give up on their other concept.
But that's what I meant before - I'm not convinced mandates on the number of alts achieve the goal of people investing in their characters like we do simply because that's not how other people necessarily like to do it. Not everyone is enlightened like we are.
I mean I know people who want to try a couple of different things - they like say, Demon but they also like Werewolf. They have friends in one sphere but they also have buddies in another who're looking for a packmate. So either way they'd need to give something up or they'll scratch the extra itch somewhere else as well; does it truly matter to you if the awesome RP partner you ran into is distracted because they're playing another character on the same MU* or on a different one? Hell, the character you ran into might be their second alt - meaning if the game didn't allow for it you wouldn't have met them in the first place.
Like Theno, I've seen games start with a restrictive alt policy and then have players start to ask for more alts. In my experience and perception, this happens when there are other, underlying reasons causing a games player base to flag and increasing alt limits is often seen as a panacea, under the reasoning if there are more charbits on grid then surely, RP must follow. It's also an easy fix to make, and typically much easier than finding underlying causes of disengagement and directing a fix at them.
That's also true - spheres stagnate, important people stop logging on causing momentum to die, folks roll characters into a different faction and suddenly there're exciting things happening there... but artificially restricting people from playing what they want doesn't solve these issues, it compounds them. You can't force life into a sphere if their roster is tired and their players want something new over the summer when things are slow or whatever, so letting some new stories to be told somewhere else in the mean time is a good thing. It sure beats people walking off to find a different MU* - that sure as hell won't help activity on the first MU*, you know?
For the record, when I speak of a restrictive alt limit, I don't necessarily mean a 1-alt limit. I would count this as any game with a limit of three or under.
Oh, three alts should be fine. People who need more are monsters.
@Ganymede Oh, and while we're at it and this probably isn't limited to the game's theme per se either, but here's the thing; it takes a very long time to evaluate a MU* yet historically only a relatively small number of them are going to stick around for any duration of time (I'm talking 'weeks' instead of months/years here) before they turn into deserted wastelands.
That means I'm careful about my upfront investment since I don't even know if I'll stick around, or hell, that the MUSH might not have anyone on next month other than staff alts, so wading through pages of home-grown systems, mechanics and rules just to be able to roll a character isn't going to happen. Perhaps others' priorities will be different than my own - @Misadventure's particular brand of insanity might well mean reading through those will be half the fun for example - but I have a finite amount of shits to give early on.
I'll sink the time, I'll sink a hell of a lot of time into your game if you hook me in, but I do need to be hooked in first. So take it easy with the walls of text.
Jesus Christ I'm stressed and ashamed and terrified because court and I'm supposed to be an adult.
Show them your MSB account, that should settle any issues of shame or misconceptions about your adulthood.
I don't care about alt policies either way personally since I never could pull off having more than one active alt at any given time. But I never found restrictive policies to serve the purpose they were supposed to on paper.
@surreality I think for me it's more about what I'm not looking for, it's more of a blacklist than anything. For example anything with furries in it, or just robots/androids/transformers, if it has the word 'pony' in its description, anything like that I wouldn't go near. Nothing against people who do, they're just not my thing.
The other thing is... I'm skeptical about 'school' games - probably including Potterverse but I'm not sure - but that's because I know TS happens and would much rather I wasn't around when it does involving underage characters. So a game must have mature ratings in that way - and not just a warning in some text file as those just get ignored.
So favorite themes... I prefer cynical, political settings that focus on interactions between characters. GMs/Storytellers are usually a luxury so the more I know I can rely on simply getting to the grid and getting roleplaying done will sate my hunger for roleplaying the better it is. In that way I prefer faction versus faction games instead of every-man-for-himself ones; group affiliations are more promising than individualism in the way that they generate scenes.
Conversely I don't like heavily edited home grown themes. My idea of fun does not entail reading through the amateur rumblings of someone who took their plan for a novella/D&D campaign/fanfic spread out over ten pages on a wiki just to set the basics of their metaplot. A cohesive take based on real-world mythologies, a book actually written by an author people pay money to read, recognisable supernatural tropes... those are quite fine. Keep it simple, don't rumble and we'll get along juuust fine, Mr. Game-Runner.
Romance is great! But it needs to not be the point of the whole thing because then RP only lasts until I find a partner. Sure, the story's evolution can be fun and go through twists and changes but it's not enough meat to keep things going on its own - in my experience it serves better against a backdrop of a wider tale than its meat and bones.
Mmm, that's about it for now. Not sure if that's what you were looking for.