Best posts made by bored

My philosophy is that CG should be CG and everyone should use the same one, with the same systems and points.

If your setting has need of special positions, rare concepts or abilities, etc etc, you can address those things by making some kind of tradeoff in CG. Pay some points, get access to whatever thing.

'Some people just get more XP/all the cool toys/whatever because they're special' (which nearly always means they're staff's buddies or just got to the game first) is a fundamentally retarded idea and everyone who supports it (so, I dunno, most people who make WoD games) is wrong and should feel bad. The end.

I think if you want to cast your MU like a play, you should consider OTT or an invite-only game instead.

Sure. Your game, your dime for the server, you can do anything you want, include being a nepotistic scumbag.

Because that's what you're going to be when you decide to play director, cast your stars, and then oh yeah, we need some extras too.

This bullshit gets you one thing. It gets you Firan.

@faraday

I think you really have to think about it in your game design and particularly in your CG rules.

For the BSG version, for example, you could say that after some reasonable point, new military PCs are not going to be 'always been there' sorts, but new recruits off civilian vessels, which is both accurate to the show and would nicely explain bringing them in without them knowing everyone. It's just going to make some people unhappy when they want to play their Caprician elite military family Adama clones. And you just need the staff-balls to say tough shit at that point. On the other hand, you'd want to make your advancement policies friendly enough that these new guys can catch up and not feel like a permanent set of second-class military citizens.

A zombie game is going to be way, way less restricted. Almost anyone can be out there and the stories/justifications for them showing up are equally endless. You may have to limit 'settlement' PCs after some point to avoid the 'I was always here' stuff, but I don't think that's terribly onerous. Again, design matters: if you are gonna limit people in the settlement, you probably want to make sure that coming from the outside is still an attractive option, that they still qualify for jobs in the settlement quickly, etc.

@Arkandel said:

If any element of the game is actually disruptive to its theme and direction then sure, intervene. If you're trying to run a sober political vampiric sphere and some players want to furry it up, come dressed up as furries and do furry things in your Elysia then yeah, you have the right to intervene.

Aka, any game Nuku played on!

That aside, I'm 100% with @lordbelh, and the last thing we need is random people dictating from their high horses, whether it's about 'proper D/s play' (whatever the living fuck that is), professional depictions, race, etc. Obvious egregiousness will be obvious, and staff can police their own theme, but beyond that I don't really give a fuck what you think of my or someone else's portrayal of something.

@faraday

I've played many games based on your current system, since it's basically become the go-to for people who don't have a coder of their own (and that's not a bad thing at all; the system is a little generic but it's good it enables those games). Every character I made, it certainly felt like an issue, because every point I took out of a 'peak' skill (regardless of how high the admins set the limit for said peak skills, or what the line between twink and non-twink was for particular people), I knew was effectively oftten several months I was setting myself back.

The problem with your methodology isn't that it espouses 'it takes a long time to master something.' The problem is that what it -effectively- says is: 'If you play a master of something as your CG concept, you will end up well rounded. If you play a well roudned person as a concept, you'l probably never be as good as the Master, and they'll be just as well rounded if not moreso than you.'

You can retain your vision by adding geometric costs into CG. Absent that, its just bad design. Sorry.

@faraday You're still completely avoiding/missing/etc the point.

I'm not arguing that you need to make it easier to catch up with a master.

I'm arguing that the master, who spent, and I will quote you, their "entire prior life" doing this thing, should probably not end up as good at other things.

But they will. After 6 months playing, the master will have picked up all your rounded skills, and you will have gained only a fraction of their knowledge. Their character, in the long run, will simply be a superior human being who has accomplished more with their life.

As for simplicity, the difference between:

'You have 80 points to spend, things cost one, you hit a command and it tells you how many points you have left'

and

'You have 150 points to spend, things cost some increasing amount, you hit a command and it tells you how many points you have left.'

... is not that great. Yes, the second is more complicated, but the fact that you're hitting +raise X and its spamming back your remaining points really makes it idiot-proof, I'd say.

As for your vision, again, I find that strange that you're forcing a particular vision on people to access what you otherwise put forward as a generic system.

Well, skills at 1-12 is really confusing, IMO, in terms of what is 'normal' what is 'master', and who gets to have what, and it probably contributes to what you're seeing. Its hard to reconcile whether your 'beginner' should have a 1 or a 3, and it's also probably hard to feel exceedingly competent at 7-9 when there's 10-12 staring you in the face, which may contribute to games using the higher values. I'm happy to link you to the game I'm talking about, if you really care.

To temper my criticism with some kindness, I do think that's a big improvement in your new version. 1-5 is much easier to mentally grasp and to lay out expectations for.

I agree that the idea of acting like you can totally split OOC and IC is hilarious, also.

The people who pretend that there's some concept of strict 'ICness' are generally either total nutbags who get way too wrapped up in things, or assholes who use 'well it's what my character would do' as an excuse to, well, be assholes. There is no point at which the OOC entity behind the keyboard is not making decisions, so there's no such thing as pure IC.

I guess we'll just have to agree to agree that we think the other is shit at reading comprehension.

@Arkandel said:

Double post: I'm terrible about my use of commas and semi colons. It's empirical if anything, and I use it when it ... feels... right.

This may help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw

(It won't help)

Sure. Although I think that's probably part of a bigger argument about modern PrP-focused MUing in general, as it applies to any genre (outside of L+L, just replace 'marriage and petty rumors' with 'sitcom style petty rumors about who is sleeping with who this week'). If staff doesn't provide some motivational energy, any game will settle into lower-stakes RP of this kind.

@Apollonius said:

I'm hijacking Packrat's thread because I know he wants a more stable political game but at the end of the day, I feel like any and all Lord and Ladies game will fight the trend of becoming a marriage simulator. It is staff's vision and drive to keep those forces away. Or blow up said weddings.

Maybe you should stop? I mean, your first post was framed as advice for MUs, but you've answered replies to it with 'this is just what I want to do in my own TT-like thing an fuck MUs.' Which is fine, but if you're just here to derail that's kind of being a dick?

Well, 30% isn't 'most', if it's even that much, so it's not correct to frame it that way when it might be a smaller core of people (which I don't disagree with; and I realize you're not the one doing so, I'm just comparing).

I think very likely the majority go where staff takes them. History supports this, and there's no reason to think anything has changed in the hobby, because we've seen games of both types, old and new. Firan's death & rape non-consent jamboree existed alongside 'everyone just RPs in private with their weyrmate' Pern games. More recently, you can put say Star Crusade next to 5th World and see very different cultures on games that were superficially very similar looking. WoD games even seem to shift within their own lifetimes, between focus on metaplot and staffers (not shockingly) burning out and leaving people to their own shit.

But I'm simply not willing to accept a view of the hobby that is so fundamentally backwards. None of the degree of obsession on game systems, mechanics, theme elements, xp and advancement, etc etc etc makes much sense if everyone wants to just get their fuck on in private, and can do so without a staffer having a chance to butt in on it on Shangrila.

@ThatGuyThere said:

My issue is not with wanted to create the L+L game that is not a marriage simulator, but the idea that all the folks are just waiting to be shown something else and then will follow along without question.
To be this strikes me as Bane level arrogance of of course once hey see my idea they will ignore what they have previously liked.
The chance is possible but it will not be easy and if you do not have the mind set of this will be a lot of work it will not happen.

Its not about anyone being shown the light, or anyone here suggesting that anything would be innovative (which was Bane's thing).

It's about this being basic, observable fact on any and every MU since basically the dawn of MUtime. Games with conflict-driven themes, staff run plots, etc have more of those things. Games that basically say 'hey this is a sandbox, you can PRP anything you want' have people sandboxing in private. I'm not sure how a person can even argue about this, its so fucking base level fundamental.

@Packrat

Sounds like generic FATE stuff, which I admit gets me the opposite of excited.

@ThatGuyThere

Star Crusade? I mean, this is how bad your argument is, that the most obvious and relevant to the thread game invalidates it. The only way you think that game was about those things is if you base your whole opinion of it on Cirno's trolling.

I think you're mostly confused by the fact that most people RP a lot of relationship stuff, but on a healthy game that's something that goes alongside plot, not something that replaces it. They can even (and should, in the best RP!) happen at the same time: your goal to save the world matters more if you care about the people in it, right?

Maaaaybe

@ThatGuyThere said:

Honestly Bored if that is what you consider a positive example of anything we are far too far apart for further discussion to have meaning.
Though I do hope you find nothing but games like Star Crusade in your future, yake that as either blessing or a curse whichever you prefer.

See, this is why I made you post what your actual criteria were, because I knew once I gave an answer you'd just go 'well its not the perfect game so haha derp you're wrong!' To remind you, since you're being a goalpost-moving weasel exactly as I predicted, you didn't say 'name a perfect game.' You said:

@ThatGuyThere said:

Not a sandbox and not about relationships. So it would simply be one that had mostly staff plots and a majority of the rp was not focused on relationships.

Those were your only criteria.

Now, if you want to highlight how the game was actually more focused on relationship RP, go ahead. Talk about all the huge amounts of relationship RP. What were some PCs who focused on relationships in preference to their positions, plot duties, etc?

Of the 4 Counts, the only person you could even make an argument for was Amber, because she did very little in general. Even fucking Renaud ran plots, got into skirmishes with other Counts, led assaults, and otherwise did plot shit. I couldn't even tell you if Lyov had a boytoy tucked away somewhere, but far as I could tell he was 100% focused on politics and war. Antonio had a marriage in the works but also was the most active person in terms of military stuff and generally being loud and outrageous in public RP. Out of my 3 characters, only one had a relationship, it only started after the game was basically in its death spiral, and even then we spent most of our time plotting for war.

So explain how it was mostly a marriage/relationship/babies focused game. Otherwise? You're fucking wrong. And you are wrong about this topic in general, because most games are closer to SC than not.

Eh, I guess to me this sounds like far too fragile of a balance. Games rarely (never?) do even simple economies well, and this is SC level crazy spreadsheet fuckery. You can say the fancy and conventional stuff balances each other, but from experience... no it won't. Whatever's the most efficient will be what gets made, the people in charge of those facilities/assets will win, etc. It also sounds very zero sum, so you can expect pretty nasty PvP (complete with accusations of favoritism) followed by rapidly losing players both to said perceptions of favoritism (true or not) and 'well, I lost all my stuff so why keep playing?'

Or basically, you'lve kind of failed at this:

@Packrat said in Space Lords and Ladies:

• Keep It Simple Stupid when it comes to economy

@Packrat said in Space Lords and Ladies:

So-so, Star Crusade did spreadsheet badly.

I am looking more to the Spreadsheetdom of the Vargo game a couple of years prior, where the economic system actually prompted a fair few people to enthuse about how cool it was on WORA (has anyone ever enthused about any economic system apart from that one or Kingsmouth? I totally plan to keep slimming stuff down and steal from Kingsmouth). That is still spreadsheet land but a much more abstract and easily maintained spreadsheet status.

This to me sounds like you're just saying 'I want to do the thing I admitted is bad, but well.'

Which, obviously, is a fine goal. I just think it's unrealistic and wonder why you're causing yourself the grief. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll probably play whatever you come up with, but I foresee the game's trajectory being rather similar to SC: enthusiasm for the fiddly bits -> unbalanced outcomes -> whining -> disenchantment/collapse.