Posts made by Arkandel

@Auspice said in Embracing Rejection:

@Arkandel said in Embracing Rejection:

But there is a gray no-man's land in the middle where we're strangers, and 'rejection' can either lead to trust or very rapidly detract from it.

At the same time, if you go into an unknown game and assume the worst of staff: that trust will never occur.

It's a give and take (which was my original point).

Players shouldn't go to games, whether they've been 'burned before' or not, assuming staff are corrupt, authoritative, playing favorites, etc.

Staff shouldn't open their games by expecting players will try to 'get away with it' whether they've seen it happen before, get overly defensive to the point of treating players with suspicion or allow the appearance of feedback coming from a bad place.

Trust is the ultimate commodity. It's an amazing currency. When you have some built it can be spent to get buy-in, and buy-in is just fucking magic in games. But it needs to be earned the hard way.

@Seraphim73 said in Carnival Row:

@Wretched said in Carnival Row:

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

We don't talk about what happens in the basement.

You just broke your own one rule!

The first week or two on a new game with staff I'm unfamiliar with are a trial for everyone involved.

Staff get to see my application which happens to be the first hint of what they can expect from me. How well do I understand the basics of the game's theme? What kind of character am I making, is he a special snowflake? Is he a munchin? Do I like to write and invest time into thinking (or overthinking) things out for my PC or is he a blank slate going in? And how pushy am I? Is my application full of requests for special, restricted merits, talents or concepts? Or do I seem to know the mechanics enough to finish CGen properly or are there actual issues with the numbers on that +sheet?

Then from my end I get to see how likely staff are to micromanage me. Do they nitpick? Are they taking forever? If they ask me to clarify, change or discard something is it with a "yes, but..." or with a "no"? Do they take the time to read and offer helpful suggestions that make my character actually better and more fun to play? Do they get their hands dirty on the grid, running impromptu PrPs during the critical first few weeks, curating theme, answering questions on public channels in a constructive way? Are they friendly? Professional? Rowdy?

Look, it takes a while for trust to be built. I'd accept criticism or 'rejection' from some of you on MSB very gladly because I know the spirit in which it is provided is a positive one, and that your goal is to make me actually have more fun, so I'd come play in your games and give it a shot every time. Others I simply don't agree with on how games ought to be ran - that's not even a mark against you. We're just not a good fit. It's fine! I wouldn't shadow your virtual doorstep which is (in my opinion) better for everyone involved.

But there is a gray no-man's land in the middle where we're strangers, and 'rejection' can either lead to trust or very rapidly detract from it.

@Derp "This +job is to use my connections into the printing press industry for propaganda. Jane, my character's girlfriend, will also assist me with her points in Finances to bribe the right people. The goal is to fix relations between humans and pixies. Also I'll run a birthday party PrP in which I'll deliver a two-pose speech as a fundraiser for awareness."

@Derp said in Carnival Row:

@Ghost said in Carnival Row:

There's a lot of "Racism isn't fun, oppression isnt fun, I want my game experience to be fun", and I dont think that you can have Carnival Row be Carnival Row without some of these elements.

Then they can play in a different game in a different setting where those elements don't exist. Why would they be interested in this setting in the first place if they find those things so offensive? It seems like they'd be put off by the IP in general.

Protip: If you want to have fun on a game where there are elements that you find distasteful, don't play on that game, or learn to ignore those elements. It's very unlikely that the entirety of the game is going to change to suit your social mores.

I completely agree.

And look, I get it. People directly, personally affected by discrimination can be triggered or made uncomfortable even by 'fantasy' variations of such themes.

But that doesn't mean games including them should not exist. It does mean staff need to ensure it doesn't get too far, to the point of glorifying those thematic elements or even letting them leak on the OOC level, but we can/should not apply modern-day liberal values to every aspect of every MU*. The struggle against unjust authority, dealing with propaganda, being the underdog often depend on the existence of such elements.

And they indeed are not for everyone. That's okay.

I personally wouldn't want to play on Carnival Row where pixie and humans are happily united against a greater threat. That's not the fucking point. Theme might eventually get there in season 3 for the show or after a certain point due to RP on a game, but that's a separate conversation - and essentially a different game.

@Auspice said in Star vs Ensemble Cast - Why Theme is Vital:

@Sunny said in Star vs Ensemble Cast - Why Theme is Vital:

ETA: Luna is the best. fite me.

She's actually my favorite, too.

Years ago and not long after I had finished reading the Harry Potter books I realized that online Luna had a strong following. This was a surprise to me because I literally barely remembered the character at all.

@Pyrephox said in Carnival Row:

My cynical suspicion, after Arx, is that I'd give it three months before the Chancellor's daughter is married to the head of the Black Raven in a huge public ceremony attended with pride by the city's finest humans, and several of the pixie prostitutes are given mansions in the Square by their human True Loves.

I give it two weeks before enlightened, liberal humans are openly advocating for full pixie civil rights in front of the entire governing body.

I am going to be burned for this but here it is anyway; when it comes to adapting works from any medium into a game the theme plays almost no role as to its success or failure. The only time its selection really matters if it's a very poor one, otherwise you are always depending 100% on your players and staff to create and participate in interesting stories.

@Auspice already hit one of the points there by mentioning The Dresden Files; there's next to nothing you can do with a Dresdenverse MU* that you can't really do with a WoD one. The rules of magic and creatures work differently but that's not what's important; the original work has value, it's fun to read because a good author wrote it and populated the world with interesting characters who survived impossible challenges sometimes due to plot armor.

Those are not things you can rely on in a MU*. For starters Joe Blow's "Dresden" will be a forgettable Mage who throws fire around and wants to bang hot chicks from different urban fantasy backgrounds. His player is going to be using mechanics which are going to get the guy killed the first time he pulls one of the impossible (as there's a reason they're impossible) stunts he does in the books. Other powerful characters are going to smash him when he cracks some wise-ass joke about them because surprise, in the MU* setting he's not the main character - there isn't any such thing. Yet those are the things Dresden is great at and a large part of the reason his adventures are fun to read.

Games must focus on gameplay first. Theme has to support that, and if it can't, the whole thing will fall apart the moment you don't have amazing players involved who can lift any material up with their creativity.

In my personal opinion the concept selection is essentially unimportant in a vacuum. There are several reasons for this.

• Success isn't - shouldn't be - the goal. A team with three meatheads who manage to recruit... a forth meathead is obviously not optimal but it could be fun. And in a way it makes sense too, because people often look for others like themselves.

• Within a reasonable environment and when it comes to inclusion OOC factors trump IC ones by a fair margin because how could they not? That Ithaeur is a better pick than the Rahu who just applied to my pack, but if the former has different hours, or the latter is a great roleplayer... isn't that more important?

• I've yet to see a good player truly made ineffective because of their concept - because that's part of what makes them good. You're not roleplaying your sheet, a soldier isn't just a guy with a gun. Sure, the troupe already has a singing bard but this newcomer - who also is one - is a rowdy, improvising scoundrel while the current one was schooled at the Academy and has an almost mathematical view of what music should be. They can coexist.

See, my suspicion is concepts are often blamed for other - systemic or personal - issues. Maybe the problem isn't the group already had a healer. Maybe it's something else.

One of the most commonly asked questions in any MU* I've ever played in is "what concepts are needed?".

People want to be in demand, either in terms of their skillset ("there aren't enough spirit shamans around"), identity ("there are too many Ventrue, I'll play Lasombra instead") or even concepts ("I wanted to play a chef but ugh, there is already one").

How important in your opinion is it for a character concept to be useful? The general answer to the question above tends to be "just play something you like" but, again in your opinion, is that better advice or does it lead to oversaturation of certain popular archetypes, and does that matter?

What should staff's role be in this? For example do incentives to artificially spread out the demographics better ("+5 XP to anyone playing a <X>") help? Is there a measurable negative impact from 'bad' concept selection or is lack of finding roleplay - or groups to join - a symptom rather than the cause?

And for players in leadership positions, how important is a prospect's general concept to your recruitment efforts? How often do you search for something character-specific rather than for attributes or characteristics more related to their players (timezones, posing ability, whatever isn't strictly IC).

Discuss.

@Lotherio said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I think the last few posts are just evidence enough I need to completely retire from trying to run a Mu. No matter how clear I try to be in the type of Mu I'm after, something is lost in translation. I'm the sticky wicket. Just for benefit of runners and players alike, communication requires two parties, whole blame cannot reside on the runner; most of the communication problem is the static in the middle between type of game trying to be run and expectations of players.

The last few posts are evidence that MSB is sometimes overly argumentative, and not always (heh) in a constructive fashion.

@The-Sands said in Carnival Row:

I don't need a game to tell me what my character should be doing. I mean, sure, that's fine when I'm playing on a tabletop and there's only one ref and he needs to keep the group moving in at least a somewhat unified direction, but for a MU* setting all I need is the opportunity to be able to do things, and Carnival Row seems to have that in spades.

You might not but most people definitely and absolutely do. What matters - a lot - to many players isn't the big picture cool stuff, the costumes, the high-end politics or the atmosphere.

The roadblock for a lot of folks is what to do when they log on. Sure, they're a cool faerie explorer in a London-esque city ripe with racial tensions but that's besides the point; what is Jane the Faerie specifically, that one character, going to be doing when she hits the grid?

Go to a bar? Sure, okay - so what are people at that bar going to talk about? Are there factions for her to join and who's recruiting? What are they going to ask her to do? What other factions does she have to fear, or hate, or want to ally herself with? What can she work towards, is there a power progression?

Settings like Carnival Row are super cool but if we're brainstorming about making a game set in that world then these are questions that need answering. Some folks are self-starters who can make it up as they go along - others, many others, need to see some playable paths in the road ahead, and they should better lead to some interesting destinations.

I'm a fan of the show for sure. But as with other similar interesting settings the question when it comes to making a game out of them is what players would be doing. What would a game be about? What are PCs going to be involved in?

@Thenomain It's also strange because, by going first, you can set your character up a little bit better too.

For example I don't feel comfortable posing as already being in a room if someone else poses that they've been there for a while as well - so if my alcoholic guy is already in his third beer at eleven in the morning it's harder to establish that without resorting to exposition of some sort where three empty glasses and a resigned sigh by the waiter who comes to clean them up would do the trick but... better.

Going first can be very advantageous. Plus you stand a bigger chance of people actually reading your whole pose rather than losing it in the entrance spam.

@Auspice That's a thing? Sheesh.

Here I don't even carry cash or cards any more. I just pay with my phone for nearly everything.

It's like asking "what makes a good dinner".

The timing differs. The company matters. The environment is important. The cook is pretty critical. The mood, too.

It also matters a very great deal how hungry you are in the first place.

@faraday said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

@Arkandel said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

It's like going to a fantasy MUSH and only being allowed to play peasants until you can earn the right to roll a Lord or Lady.

Except in the "Rebels" era, it's more like going to a fantasy MUSH and not getting to play the king. It's not like Jedi are an entire class of citizenry like lords/ladies, they're crazy-rare as an intrinsic part of the setting. Sure you could do KoTOR or whatever, but for some folks (like me) it's the rebels vs. empire that are interesting, not jedis running around rampant.

Oh, for sure. I'm not even trying to say every game should fit my tastes - just that it was why I didn't want to play in one that didn't even give me the option to play something I wanted.

Mind you, Star Wars is by far not the only setting with rare concepts yet those are often what players want to play. Playable male channelers in the Wheel of Time might not fit certain timelines either and I'd understand why a MUSH might want to not want them as PCs. Once again though if a player wanted to play that concept and it wasn't available... well, I wouldn't blame them for passing on it too.

In my opinion it's a design choice in the same vein as not spreading the playerbase too thin. While the average population in many MU* is low staff need to take that into consideration when they're creating a game; can the theme support (and how many) of the cool concepts we've see in movies and TV series so far - clone stormtroopers, Force users of different varieties, Mandalorian warriors and bounty hunters, smugglers, droids, pilots... all of that stuff?

"No" is a valid choice. All I would ask is that it's a deliberate one. And if it is, it might be one of the answers to this thread's main question.

For me it was a combination of three things.

1. The rules. SO many rules. Like come on, SAGA required me to be knowledgeable about (or at least willing to learn) content and mechanics found over something like 6+ books. That's an insane barrier to entry.

2. The enforced rarity. No, you can't play a Jedi/Sith/Mandalorian/whatever until you prove... something by jumping through hoops for months. Yeah, that's not going to happen - I need to have fun on day one or I'll find something better to do with my time. It's okay to play a lowly, neonate-level character of 'restricted' archetypes at first but that's it. It's like going to a fantasy MUSH and only being allowed to play peasants until you can earn the right to roll a Lord or Lady.

3. The playerbase being spread out between different planets, galaxies, etc. That's such an easily preventable way for a game to suffer that it's always on its staff; if you expect your game to have low number of logins to begin with, then players are routinely unable to play with each other due to geography you need to fix it.

It: Chapter 2 was a'ight. Nothing special. The first one was much better - this one had a lot more comic relief that got distracting at times, and I think it over-relied on its physical gory horror effects.

Also the ending was about five minutes too long.

I'm often the first to pose just so the ball gets rolling. At this point I can write somewhat generic poses without putting much thought into it as long as I'm setting-savvy.

There are typically three exceptions.

1. Someone else offers or simply poses first. Awesome!

2. I'm visiting someone in their own domain (home, space station, haven, whatever). They typically get offered to pose first so I know what the place and their character's current situation are like.

3. If I'm at a new MU* set in some fantasy society and I'm playing a concept whose social status or relations to others I'm not quite sure about I'll happily defer to others until such things are picked out organically. For example if I'm RPing a bodyguard going to a high-end music hall I may be unsure if within the setting I should go over and directly address his betters, if he would be allowed to wear a sword, or even if he's expected to talk at all without the act itself being noteworthy. That doesn't mean I wouldn't have him talk regardless in that theoretical case, but I want to OOC know that it's against the norms to do so since the character himself would.

In such cases I'll let others take the lead.