Topics created by BobGoblin

@bobgoblin said in Tools, and not just Beiber.:

I agree, and disagree, with the amount of work. I think you're front loading your work with something like this.

Costs: Additional up front work of writing the scenarios, designing the flows, tracking the results of the scenarios and communicating

Pros: Instead of needing to 'run things' 3 times a week, you may have one day a week of 'work' in doing the above.

For myself, I think the trade-off isn't the worst ever.

We might need to come to MSB's infamous agree-to-disagree state here. 🙂

Generally speaking it's far harder and more labor-intensive to communicate with and coordinate STs than to run scenes yourself. It simply is - there are all kinds of efficiencies which as staff you can develop over time when you're experienced at running plot, starting with:

simply knowing the rules (in many cases being the one who made them in the first place) understanding the combat system (many perspective STs I've spoken to have mentioned this as the reason they want to but don't) having the players' respect (fewer people try to go over your head to 'make sure you're right about this ruling') finding out exactly what happened (the log might not show incorrect rolls or use of mechanics, misleading pages, etc), and of course dealing with actually malevolent players which on their own can send you spinning your wheels for a long time.

I think the key to all of this is getting that early momentum going. Once you have it things become so much simpler; engaged players whose characters are already interested and have a stake in things will ask you questions, point out ways to enrich your plots, can easily run something on the spot for you if you ask them since OOC they already know a lot about the situation, etc. When you don't need to chase them down but they are coming to you then you got'em - but the first few weeks, sometimes months, require a lot of constant vigilance and grooming to the point of micromanagement.

Most games don't have the staff who can do that. It's easy to spot, too, when there's a surge of activity early and then the momentum dies down as people sit on their thumbs. In my opinion the first month after opening is critical for a MUSH; it's too easy to get the kiss of death from a surge of characters getting created followed by nothing at all; once the surge is spent if there's nothing else going on... well, things get tougher from then on.

Policy: I don't really have a best one. If anything I think the 2 person policy cause sometimes I have another idea or want to have a dick and twat.

Game System: Randsomscene that incentivizes rp with others. So yeah you want xp? play with me fool!

Setting: For the short while it was there a Victorian Dark Ages Hunter setting. I forget the name but it needs to be revived. (Hmmm... I'm tempted)

Code: I gotta give it up to @faraday . A plug and play code system that allows you to quickly set up a game and setting for anything under the sun. It has all the basic stuff common place in all games. That's just awesome.

I know nothing about Reign but I played in a One Roll game, Godlike, which was world war 2 with superheroes. And while it fit the tone the mechanics were pretty high lethality so you might want to make sure you players are prepared for that.

@surreality
I would say that could stay on the wiki, I think i am one of the hardliners on not wanting to mess with the wiki while playing so what I want on the game is all things I would need in the playing of the game. (Minus the rules which can't be reproduced in the case of WoD or other tabletop of course.)

Information on the wiki could be more in depth and wiki specific for things like using the wiki but I also would not want to have to log on the game to get info about how to do X on the wiki.

One of my favourite book series ever. If I have time, I'd be interested should anyone do this.

@Sunny said:

I don't see where this is in conflict with what I am saying.

It's not. It's me venting frustration regarding that position, but understanding why you've taken it.

To give a more thorough response, I feel like it really depends. Clearly some people here have been burned and are responding to that and i get it, but I think any people who pair up whether they are roomates or irl best buddies or just online pals who game together often and like to go into MU*es with paired concepts and then run wild can either be fun or a problem. The issue is often how much OOC info is shared, and how much of the game is 'played' OOC vs IC, and I don't think that has much to do with who is a couple real life or not.

My husband and I play on MU*es together sometime, though he is a far more casual player than I. He and I also both come from a MUD background and he is slower to move on to the MUSH culture of sharing -anything- OOC, even the stuff that everybody shares, so for us it really isn't a problem. He gets PISSED at me when I try to discuss with him even the most benign details of game plots or plans or ideas for doing something cool OOC. I can't even tell him funny stories that have nothing to do with anything if they happened on the game and are "IC Information' as he dubs it. We have in the past played against each other and enjoyed the heck out of it, and also sometimes play on the same 'team' with some kind of connection or other. It really ends up being no big deal, no more influential than playing with a friend who I have never met.

Relationship RP with other people when we play is no big deal either, unless the other party (the text one) gets weird in some fashion, like there was a time some girl his character was in a relationship with yelled at him because he wasn't online when he said he would be to rp relationship fun with her because he'd spontaneously decided to take his in the flesh wife on a date. That kind of fluke aside, it's been pretty easy though.

If people are going to be weird, I think it doesn't matter what their relationship to one another is. They'll be jerks anyhow.

Dahan or Gizka, I can't recall which one, was on Generations of Darkness for a time. If memory serves.

Edit: I should clarify that, as mentioned, if my memory is correct it was in the capacity as a player. Not as a staffer/coder. Then again with all the strange names, it's possible I got the individual mixed up with a different past staffer on a different game.

@icanbeyourmuse - http://lmgtfy.com/?q=black+company+series+glen+cook