Posts made by Auspice

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

@Auspice I'm not sure what counterpoint you're trying to make. They're saying tech is important, but not the sole answer; and you keep coming down on tech as not being the answer... which is in line with what they said. You're both essentially saying the same thing, but the way you put it makes it sound like you're denigrating technological improvements as essentially pointless. Which I don't think you ARE, but your responses are confusing.

What I'm saying is:
Quite often (Faraday isn't, personally) when 'how do we get new people?' comes up, peoples' answer is: we need more cool toys! Give them button interfaces instead of text!
etc.
While ignoring the social points that @Ghost brought up.

I'm saying:
I agree that tech helps, but not that tech. And even 'make it easier to make games' is not the answer. It's part of it.

I was gonna put this in the Buying Shit thread but then I thought: maybe people wanna share some of their favorite audio books? (Some have better narration than others!)

So to start: https://www.chirpbooks.com/deals
This is a site that provides audiobooks at really good prices (like, we're talking under $4). It IS through their app, but it's absolutely cheaper than Audible (esp. if, like me, it can take you a month or more to finish one) and it's not a subscription.

I bring it up because right now, there are a lot of really good books available.

Aaaanyway, to kick off discussion:
my favorite audio book of the past few years was Dan Simmons' Hyperion. I struggle to engage with audiobooks (ADD issue), but that one managed to actually grasp me really well and I found myself making time to listen to it.

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

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

This could be done in a number of ways, absolutely. And many of them already exist.
Ares and its MU-in-a-box.
Arx providing its code open-source so people can use it as a structure for their own game (Ithir!).
Theno and his WoD code.

Except that two out of those three things would not exist if folks like @Griatch and I accepted the basic premise that tech doesn't help get new blood and that building better tech is "a waste of time". So I do reject that premise.

Tech is not the only answer, but I wholeheartedly believe it is an important part of the solution.

Well, I put the Arx one on @Tehom more than @Griatch. Evennia is still super intimidating (I love it in concept and if I was good with Python I've got like, 3 different ideas for the codebase ... but I am not remotely strong enough a coder to even begin).

Yes, tech is important. Yes, it can help get new blood.
But these solutions are still geared towards 'people already here.' (aka someone brand new who has never heard of MUing is highly unlikely to grab Evennia and build a game)

Like I said: a lot of times tech comes up, it's for 'what bells and whistles can we add to appeal to the Kids Of Today?' ...

IMO, culture and game options are the big deal. Yes, tech HELPS but it is not the answer (which, as @Ghost pointed out, it's often touted to be).

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

Part of the reason people put up with crappy games/staff/etc. is because there are so few games out there. While that's not solely a tech issue by any stretch, it is an issue that tech can absolutely help with. There are good people with creative ideas out there if we can enable them to put those ideas into practice.

This doesn't, however, disagree with his premise that 'tech is not the answer to getting new blood.'

A lot of the time people speak of 'we need innovation to appeal to people,' it's end-user/UIX. 'If we give them navigation buttons so they don't have to type nsew...'

What you're suggesting relates to what he's saying:

By enabling more people to create games, people can get away from the toxic environments.

This could be done in a number of ways, absolutely. And many of them already exist.

Ares and its MU-in-a-box.
Arx providing its code open-source so people can use it as a structure for their own game (Ithir!).
Theno and his WoD code.

There are other things that get in the way of running a game and not all of them tech. Lord above if tech were the only thing, I'd've been running games for the past 20 years.

The other questions people run into:
Who do I trust to Staff? (and before you open your mouth, @Ghost, trusting someone enough to Staff with them is a whole other bag than roleplaying with them)
What do I want my story to be (and where do I find the time to write it all)?
What do I want my website to look like? (This one is huge and one I don't think enough of us acknowledge: there were a ton more games back before wikis. And a smaller playerbase is not the only reason why. I HATE BUILDING A WIKI and I'm not talking the design. I'm talking the structure and data. I imagine I am far from the only one.)

The two things go hand-in-hand: ease-of-use in making games and the right culture in which to run them.

@Apos said in How important is it to be 'needed'?:

If something is needed but no one plays it, it's because the RP they get isn't fun, and they don't feel valuable and important despite being needed.

This is a very valid point. And why I've had times when I answer this question (on a variety of games) with 'We need <X>, but it isn't going to be a concept that gets a lot of play. I recommend it if <you don't have a lot of time to RP / you're still learning the theme / etc>'

This is where NPCs come in handy.

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

ETA: Luna is the best. fite me.

She's actually my favorite, too.

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

For starters Joe Blow's "Dresden"

And this is where, I think, a lot of the 'Oh, <IP> would be a great game!' stems from.

People see X character in Y story and they want to experience Y story (or continue it if the show left things vague / they're super invested).

This doesn't work on MUs. We're a collaborative environment with anywhere from 10 to 100 people all in the same story.

Harry Potter is a fantastic example here. When I read the HP books / watch the movies, the character whose story I'm most invested in isn't going to be the same as @Arkandel or @Ghost or @Ganymede. It might, but I doubt the four of us have the same favorite character and favorite storyline.

BSG is another good example here. Not everyone wants to be Starbuck, (In fact a lot of people can't stand Starbuck.) But most people who are a fan of the series can identify their own personal character/plotline that appeals.

When it's just 'I like this aesthetic' or 'I want to walk in the shoes of my favorite PC,' a potential game is going to flounder.

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

. You can't actually play a White Council story out in the Pentacle, the two organizations have different focuses, structure, reach, conflicts and goals. Magic is fundamentally different in each setting. I guess I am just not seeing your point here.

These are flavor. Aspects of setting.

You don't get a lasting story with character development out of 'how the magic works.'

That's part of my point. People are looking for stories. How their character gets to affect the world.

Whether my magic is blue or red doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. 'I get to save the world from evil monsters' does.

I love my job but I don't always love my job.

I started in July, coming into a project for a new tool that had been in development for almost two years (there was a lengthy stall in there where it got shelved and then brought back out). I was brought in in July for a product due to launch in January 2020. Okay. That's a good period of time.

Except at the beginning of August, I was told 'We're going into scrimmage first week of October, so documentation needs to be ready by then.'

It took all of July to settle in and grasp the concepts coming at me because it's not just a new industry; it's a new industry that does things their own way.

It took August to learn the tool, write my outline, and get some rough drafts of sections done.

Here I am, week 2 of September, and there's a lot of 'Why isn't the training material ready?'

Maybe, maybe if you'd brought someone in back in, oh, April? maybe? this would be closer to done.

It's two different sides: the people that have been embroiled in this project from the start and people who have to learn it new for January and are anxious about it.

And I can't seem to get them to understand: to be able to document the training material (aka to be able to teach this through text and images), I need to fully understand it myself. That takes time.

ETA: And I am missing a lot of things because other teams haven't finished / delivered them. So the documentation I have completed has a lot of 'process to be inserted here once approved' type notes.

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

It seems like by "World of Darkness with limitations" you mean any and all urban fantasy that isn't world of darkness. Not sure how to answer that one.

I can take just about any Dresden files story and go onto an urban supernatural game (if we must absolutely quibble over this part; I use WoD because most urban supernatural games are WoD and it's a readily available ruleset) and play it out. Magic users? Check. Vampires? Check. Werewolves? Check. ........ etc.

There is a very big thing we have to admit to ourselves when it comes to this idea (having a theme - even a scope as @mietze put it, which is a great way to look at it): WoD is a different beast for a reason people tiptoe around.

Sandboxing.

'Why are these people always in temprooms?!' does not mean they're avoiding the playerbase at large. I can tell you from experience it usually means they're sandboxing in their own stories. I had a ton of fun on Fallcoast for a good number of months and it had nothing to do with the game at large and everything to do with me and the people I met making up our own stories that would've probably gotten 'wtf' looks from other people.

I, in fact, not so long ago told someone asking for advice on a WoD game to lean into this idea. Provide multiple grids in various locations / time periods. Let people have multiple versions of their character (Jane the Werewolf in 2019, Jane the Werewolf in 1810, Jane the Werewolf in 2300...) and just administrate the overhead while giving people, essentially, a vehicle to fluidly play OTT.

But this is an issue we have: we wonder why X games fail, but WoD Game #19282 succeeds. The two are different beasts altogether. I think, absolutely, a lot of Arx's success can be attributed to the fact that they have a very rich, well-defined theme that enables all kinds of people to get involved. If they had just the setting, but no theme (what external forces drive the characters), they probably wouldn't be as successful as they are.

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

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

I can have two Battlestar games. One is about the beginning of the war, the rise of the Cylons, and humanity's fumble. The other is about the end stages of the war when humanity has to find a place to rebuild. Both are BSG. But both have very different atmospheres (IC). One is about failure the other is about hope. One can become the other, yes, but the driving theme at the start is still different.

I have to disagree a little bit.

"BSG in the beginning of the Cylon War" is a setting too. Within that setting you could do all kinds of themes. Inter-colonial politics. Post-apocalyptic trapped-in-a-ruined-city. Space family soap opera (ala Caprica) centered around Cylon research. Or the one I chose for BSGU, aka "WWII in space shoot-em-up".

I prefer the terms setting and hook.

Setting is just the time/place/environment that the game is set.

Hook is more about what you're going to do within that environment.

Without a hook, it's just a city sandbox.

You're right. I was trying to think of a single setting with multiple potential themes while also trying to organize all my other thoughts on the subject and that's what fell out.

Double-posting because...

This is something that actually irks me. Theme and setting are two different things.

I can have two Battlestar games. One is about the beginning of the war, the rise of the Cylons, and humanity's fumble. The other is about the end stages of the war when humanity has to find a place to rebuild. Both are BSG. But both have very different atmospheres (IC). One is about failure the other is about hope. One can become the other, yes, but the driving theme at the start is still different.

WoD and D&D - these are not settings. They are toolsets that dictate the rules of the world. So 'World of Darkness game set in modern day Brussels' has no theme. It has a setting and a guidebook.

'World of Darkness game set in Iraq during the start of the Gulf War' has a theme. A really weird theme, but a theme.

I honestly feel the fact that we let theme and setting be interchangeable words means a lot of people are missing out on the theme question when building their game.

I have a world I've been developing IRL. It's sci-fi, humanity spread around the galaxy, etc etc... but the theme is 'Fighting against an oppressive government' for my story in particular. I could pluck another one out of there and make it, say, 'Exploring new worlds' and it would wildly change the story being told.

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

The theme was there, the world building was there, everything you needed for a game.

But tell me this:
What makes it a different game from just 'World of Darkness with limitations'?

I played on a Dresden game once and it very quickly became 'The primary Wizard (aka Harry-analog), his apprentice (aka Molly-analog) and their friends.' The rest of us were literally told 'Staff is not going to be providing stories for anyone outside of this group. If you want plot, you have to make your own.'

Because they realized they couldn't consistently create world-affecting plot. Anything they generated largely fell apart when faced with multiples of X archetype.

ETA: Also, we need to stop conflating 'theme' with 'setting.' The setting was there. A theme was not. 'You're a <X> in New Orleans in the Dresdenverse' is not a theme. It's a setting. 'The Red Court is on the rise and Mab is pushing to answer, with humans caught in the middle.' is a theme......but unfortunately, once again, it's one answered by a very small, core cast while everyone else sits on the sidelines and maybe gets to take part in the big final battle.

@Ganymede said in How important is it to be 'needed'?:

@faraday said in How important is it to be 'needed'?:

Also some people can be really over-protective about their perceived uniqueness. "Ugh, I was the chef but now there's this other guy butting in on my 'territory'." So emphasizing/rewarding that is not necessarily ideal either.

I will admit that I go onto games to look for "what is needed." This is important to me. I'm not entirely jealous about it, though, and I usually find niches that absolutely need filling. For example, on Gundam UC100, my PC is the sassy-backtalking military chick who was into sneaking around and doing rogue-like shit. And on BSG:U, I played the sassy-backtalking ...

... I think I just tend to play the same trope over and over, and people like it, and I have that place everywhere, and I'm not totally desperate to be wanted and loved for what I bring, not at all.

This is what you get for being a trash panda.

So while I have, in the past, absolutely been the Staffer encouraging people to play what you like, I also acknowledge that a lot of people want that direction.

The reason we (people like me) push the 'play what you want' is because someone crafting a character just to fill a niche may be wanted, but they're also less likely to stick around.

I'm taking a slightly different approach on SGM.

We have a sort of top-down approach. Scientists and Military are kept very separate. Not ICly (not remotely!), but in terms of build. You can be a combat char who has a hobby in entomology, but they won't be as good at it as a scientist who has a PhD in it. And a scientist can absolutely have some skill in martial arts or firearms, but they won't be as good as the Staff Sergeant who is a career marine.

Paradox terms this along the lines of the 'special' factor.
We acknowledge that people IRL may exist who have multiple PhDs and are combat trained to the point of being able to handle war zones.
But for the sake of teamwork (IC and OOC) and 'sharing the spotlight;' we don't allow it.

Along these lines, something else I am doing is closing concepts pretty quickly. We're still a small game. When a full fifth of our playerbase is one type of thing? It's time to put it on the restricted list. And I do keep an eye on things and take stuff back off restricted once we've spread out a bit more.

I also keep a 'Wanted Concepts' post with things we either have none or very few of.

So while I want people to play what they wanna play (to ensure they have fun and are engaged), I also know that people are sometimes uncertain about what they wanna play or they want to come in knowing they can be engaged. I'm trying to facilitate this.

(Another way Paradox and I encourage this is by reeling in people from that old habit of 'I'm gonna do all this by myself!' And making it very very very difficult for Janet the Anthropologist to do extensive, difficult things in astrophysics. Instead, we tell them 'Just so you know, these two other PCs would be a great help to you in this. Why not involve them?')

I was writing a reply to another post and realized that my thoughts on this subject may be better off as a new discussion.

We encounter a lot of Intellectual Properties that seem like they'd make a great game, but they end up floundering. And why wouldn't we look at our favorite books, movies, and shows and not want to play in them? It's what we do.

As being discussed in the Carnival Row thread: theme is important.
Your setting is the IP itself (Carnival Row, Harry Potter, Buffy, Battlestar), but the theme is the question that needs answering.

How do we defeat these cylons?
What was life like as a student during the rise of Voldemort?

The problem with some IPs is that the theme question becomes fuzzy. Take Dresden Files for example. I fucking love this series. A coworker and I chat about it daily (I'm taking my time on the most recent book; he's about 7 books in). But I've had to admit to myself: it doesn't make a good game.

The reason is that when you take away the set dressing, it's just another urban supernatural game. You might as well be playing 'WoD with limitations.'

And while I've, for a long time, felt that's because some things lend themselves better to plucking a metaplot out of the air (Star Wars: pick an era, you have an antagonistic force baked right in), I think it's actually a much easier answer:

Is the entire story contingent on a single hero? Or is it about a group of people?

Buffy had a cast we all loved, but when it came down to it: it was about Buffy. Take her out and the whole thing falls apart. She was the star the rest of the solar system revolved around.

But take the Magicians, for example: their world lends to conflict. The last season of the show is a wonderful example. We saw groups outside of the main cast affected by the magicians vs hedge witches and magic shortage. Affected by and working to resolve, both.

The story exists without the star. This is the case with something like, say, Star Trek. Take away whomsoever you might think is the star and the story continues.

Now, that doesn't mean the others are bad stories, but it does mean that (IMO) they make the challenge of building a game that much more difficult.

You need to have that theme question. And when I consider the fact that I can go on Generic WoD City Game #17, a Dresden Files game, or a Buffy game, and make the exact same character on all three ... the theme falls apart.

It's why I absolutely believe that metaplot has to come with the game. It doesn't have to be a metaplot you roll out as massive, world-altering chapters (like Arx does), but it has to be present because the characters (and players) need something that keeps them within the world and makes them feel relevant.

But for me, the very first question when approaching an IP: is this setting suitable for an ensemble cast? In a way that enables each and every person to have an impact as opposed to being simply an observer?

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

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

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

there is clearly a demand for it's existence

That doesn't mean it's a good idea.

It doesn't mean it's a bad idea, either.

I would totally play a game like WNOHGB again and own the shit out of the econ system.

@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.

I think the issue you ran into (of the two games of yours I've been on recently) is that you were using a system many people are unfamiliar with (this always has issues) and you ended up with a fairly large number of people who wanted the game to be their way, not yours.

Which does mean I agree, to an extent, that it's not solely on the game runner. But you also need to be more firm about putting your foot down and saying 'No, this is how we do it around here.'

If people can't handle you being the guiding hand then they need not play your game.

@Tyche said in Random links:

Crazy Chick Flips Out in Barnes & Noble
What kind of cockadoodee bookstore doesn't carry Paul Sheldon's books?!

That's a well-done performance piece. She's even got the outfit down pat.

@Ghost said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Lisse24 L O L.

You should become a pop-up then when they're talking.

Them: So on Wednesday we have a meeting with-

You: -HEY let's get some pizza.

Them: Uh. Hang on a second let me finish this. So this Wednesday when we're meeting w-

You: -Would you like to save money on auto insurance???