Best posts made by bear_necessities

@zombiegenesis sorry it takes you out of it! I hope you find a game you can enjoy

I have a desc in Gray Harbor that basically goes "Anyway this is Cracker Barrel and it's exactly what you would expect a Cracker Barrel to look like" lol

Why cant you "just create" an NPC? It is character generation. You run them through CGen. Slap a BG on them and bam, you have an NPC.

Anyway, basic difference IMO is that an NPC is meant to be a story device. NPCs are there to move plot. They are the "quest givers" basically. They shouldn't be regularly played and they should be played ultimately to support PCs.

What drives me crazy is when a staff has an NPC but that they use to be the star of a plot. No. Stop that. That is for PCs. If you want to be the star of your show, make a PC.

Mad Max is not anything I'm interested in but I really just recommend making a game that you're passionate about. Flesh it out, get the game up and running, be excited about it and people will come.

People really enjoyed HorrorMU and had a lot of fun. Have you thought about leaning into that sort of concept?

@Kanye-Qwest said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@Wretched do you honestly think staffers are not going to prefer rp with players that are fun for them to rp with, regardless of TS?

It's your responsibility as a staff to engage with all players regardless of how fun they are. Players someone would consider "boring" deserve interaction, too.

@Pyrephox said in Gray Harbor Discussion:

Also, it's not a PVP game, but you do have characters with opposed agendas/desires - there are criminals and cops, for example. I think people are still feeling out how to navigate that in ways that are fun for everyone, but the playerbase thus far has seemed pretty willing to have conflict IC while remaining chill OOC, and to respect the difference between 'fun conflict' over 'and I must murder this PC and everyone they know because it is what my character would do'. Which is something that I very much hope continues.

This right here is my favorite thing about the game and intend to do my part as GM to keep this atmosphere running strong.

I agree with @krmbm. I really really really wish there were at least a few more games out there so all the pegs can find the right holes in which to insert themselves into.

Oh you must be talking my great friend @ZombieKerouac who did the same exact thing on my game, Gray Harbor.

So I don't know much psychology to use it in my build but I often think that people should sandbox the games/themes they want to play before they put it out there for public consumption. People always laughed and thought I was joking when I said @krmbm and I started Gray Harbor as a cowboy game - but it's true. She and I really wanted a cowboy game, we spent a lot of time developing a website, a grid, theme, etc. And while we were building, we sandboxed it, and we had fun but it wasn't anything we felt was sustainable or long-lasting.

Every so often we go back to that cowboy theme and we sandbox a story and it's great. And we go, why didn't we make a cowboy game? And then we think about long-term playability, the difficulty of incorporating inclusivity into a wild west theme and balancing "history" with what people actually want to play, and it's not great and nothing that can ever be sustained in the long run.

I think people build games and think "is this fun?" but they don't consider the "will this STAY fun?" One of the difficulties I encountered is evolving a game or a theme and keeping it interesting. How do youmake changes without upsetting the playerbase? How do you incorporate growth? What happens when you really get to the end of the story? Etc. etc.

One of the the things @krmbm and I talk about now is the cycle you indicated (opening > growing > peak > overpopulation) and how to control that. Is it possible to limit population without killing your game? How do you responsibily say "I only have capacity for 25 people" but continuously have 25 people playing because eventually 5 people will go inactive? I don't have any good answers for these questions, but it's definitely something we consider a lot.

@Ghost said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

To be fair, Firan had all kinds of coded/creep bizarre

I mean, to be fair, I played Firan for 3 years and was never aware of the 'secret game within the game' and I know a lot of people who were not aware of it either until after the game was already closed.

That's still not the point. Arx filled the hole that Firan left in the community. Another game would fill the hole left by Arx. The hobby is not dying.

@auspice said in A Regency MU (Conceptual):

I spent a few minutes just debating deleting the whole idea because 'Well shit if I'm just going to be nitpicked to death for my hey this isn't meant to be ultra realistic idea not being realistic enough why even bother?'

Welcome to creating a game, where you will be nitpicked to death about everything and anything during all phases of the game's life.

FWIW, I never thought @Pyrephox was being negative. Instead, she sounded interested and excited.

When players really lean in to the prompts you give them and makes the scene a million times better than expected

@derp Exactly how is removing a stalker from your game 'playing favorites'????????

@ganymede said in GMs and Players:

If you are perceived as having bias then you should no longer staff.

So I'm going to disagree with that point, because I'm 110% positive that every staff on every game is at some point perceived as having a bias. Whether or not that perception is reality is one thing, but if staff should step down every time they are "perceived" as having bias? We wouldn't have anyone staffing.

As far as the queston that was asked by @icanbeyourmuse, I don't think staff should be TSing on NPCs. If you want to TS people, use a PC. NPCs are there to move plot along, if that plot somehow involves a PC trying to bone the NPC, then FTB. If your plot involves the NPC boning a PC, uh.. please rethink that plot, I guess, cuz that seems super predatory and uncomfortable for everyone.

I have seen it become a problem with staff using their PC to bone people, but it was because the only way you could get plot was by being romantically/sexually involved with the staff person's PC. I voted with my feet and stopped playing that game.

@arkandel said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

The problem with that is exactly what you'd expect. It's not coming up with the concept that's the blocker. Most people can cook up a "my dog was kidnapped by a goblin, get her back!" questline, WoW-style.
It's running it. That takes more time, effort, following up.

I think that about sums it up. Having the tools available (bingo cards, random plot generators, actual dungeons they can crawl) is great and I think it can be helpful but I don't think it makes an actual noticeable difference to the players who are willing to run scenes on their own. I would actually say that the people who would use those tools are already the people who would run small one-off scenes without them.

EXCUSE ME it's "local Jensen Ackles" TYVM

I really wouldn't worry too much about the feedback you get here. I tend not to get too interested in games that are at the base-concept level because 9 times out of 10 they won't see the light of day and I don't want to get invested or excited. Probably a lot of other people like that.

That being said - build it and they will come. Really, if you are active as a staffer and running plot scenes regularly, you'll have people that will play.

@Pandora like @krmbm indicated, we hope people come around and roleplay. We have roster characters who have pre built relationships but you can also reach out and oocly establish relationships with other characters on an OC easy enough.

That being said, I think in any game you're going to have your chit chat scenes and you're going to have your plot scenes. There are things on Gray Harbor to look into/research, there is lore to uncover. There are things that can happen to your character. Staff is going to be telling stories that connect to the basic meta plot. We are also going to tell small one off stories. And you can design and run your own PRPs too.

Looks like fun @Cobaltasaurus . The only thing I'd caution on is making sure all the PCs have a shared goal. Too many groups can splinter the population if there's nothing that brings them together, and then you just have a game where people are doing their own thing with their own group and not interacting with others.

@krmbm said in MU Things I Love:

A comment in another thread about how hard it is to find people who want to ST things for other players reminded me...

I'm really not good at figuring out people's handles on MSB, but Alexander, Carver, Penny, Dahlia, and August at GH volunteered to be storytellers, and I can't say enough nice things about them.

They run scenes, pick up RP jobs, execute longer plots, and brainstorm "cool things to do." I feel like we've gotten very lucky with the number of proactive players who are keen to tell stories for other people.

Our STs are AMAZZZINNNNNGGG!!!! It makes me really happy